I had just come home from the last day of school in my 9th grade. I checked the answering machine for new messages and I found what I had least expected - a message from my mother's divorce lawyer. Even though all the warning signs had been there, I was still surprised. Things were bad between my parents, and my mom had already threatened to divorce my dad several times that year. They started going out on dates again afterwards, though, and I thought they were past all that. Before things turned sour, I thought my family was completely normal. One of my friends had even said to me, “you have the perfect family.” It turns out, not so much.
My parents officially divorced that September, although we waited to move until two weeks later. It was an abrupt transition - one day I was living among the piles of boxes at my house, and the next I was sleeping on a mattress on the ground in a foreign house, going to a completely different bus stop in a different neighborhood. My 15th birthday was only a few of months after the divorce, and it was a nightmare. Both of my parents were there, along with most of the family on my mom's side. Everyone tried to pretend that everything was normal, but it wasn't. The tension was almost unbearable, my aunt said that from now on they should keep all event separate.
In that first year I ran into a lot of changes, both good and bad, that I had never encountered before. After the divorce and getting their feet back under them, my parents decided to start threatening one another with frivolous lawsuits. Also my parents both started dating soon after the divorce, a change that I found quite strange and even stressful. My mom has been in a long-term relationship for a while now. Their relationship is one of the most functional relationships I've ever seen, and it's great to watch. The problem lies in my brother, who does not get along with the man involved. It caused a lot of stress at home, for both him, my mom, and her new boyfriend.
I wish I could say that everything's perfect now in the aftermath of divorce - that my parents get along great and my brother and I see both of them regularly. But that's not the point of this. Life after a divorce is messy, and nothing in life is ever perfect. What I can tell you is that my parents love both my brother and I a great deal, even though they no longer love each other. And I can safely say that with each year that passes we work through more issues, and my family becomes happier and more stable. I love my family, and I get along very well with them. What I have learned from this experience is that things do get better, and there is life after divorce if you can just hang in there.
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