I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, asking myself “am I going to feel like I’m stuck in a tug of war forever? I’m exhausted, so what is the point of getting to the next battle”? Yes, having divorced parents is very hard, to say the least, especially when all their energy is focused on their hate for one another. It seemed to cloud their judgement, so I continue to ask yourself, “are the actions and judgements that my parents take really for my well-being or just in spite of the other parent”? These questions always sit in the back of my mind and linger and sometimes when these questions do arise, I want answers. I hear a knock at my bedroom door, I don’t make a sound, I disregard it. Julia, my sister, opens the door anyway. She lets out a sigh and comes to lay beside me. She interlaces her fingers into mine and gently wipes a tear that seemed to be dangling off my chin with the back of her finger. Now, Julia is younger than me and was still a baby when my parents ended things and life didn’t seem to follow the fairytale script and even though I was young too at the time, I was old enough to be competent to have formed memories and judgements. Though Julia and I didn’t really go through the exact same experience with the divorce and even now, don’t go through the same hassles with our parents, she knew me, truly and deeply. She is my person, my middle man (or I guess woman in this case), she understood how intricate things were, things that even now I can’t seem to explain to another person because it is so deep in thought. But Julia always got the message I was trying to send and the perfect thing about her is the fact that, yes we are in the situation together but we do handle things differently. Julia has turned into an insider, with my outsider’s perspective. I finally break the silence, “Do you think they will ever stop hating each other, for the sake of us?” She lets out a sigh, like she has holding her breath for way too long. She turns to face me with her head resting on her hand. She locks eyes with me; she must really want me to get her point, “people don’t really change Lea, but later in life when we aren’t kids anymore, they will see the error of their ways”. I mean, don’t get me wrong, we love our parents and they each had their pros and cons like every parent does, plus, Julia and I were lucky enough to have both of them in our lives. But today just seemed like a blocking point. The issue of money for college arose, questions on who would pay for what, and it’s not like we all sat down at the table to hash out the issue out like normal people, no. But rather it consisted of emails between them, and phone calls to me to play the role of messenger, nothing was getting fixed. Each parent had their own standing and reasons for not wanting to dudge. My mom is in my ear telling me, “Lea, your father makes more money than me, you should have him pay for more”, while my dad claiming, “Lea, I give your mother child support money, she should pay more,'' the back and forth continued which each parent trying to trump the other. The image of a devil and an angel appeared on my shoulders, but they seemed to be everything but angels today. I continued to play back what they kept explaining to me in my head over and over again, “Should I pick a side? Is one’s explanation better than the other?” but how could I even pick one parent over the other, I could never do that. “This is my future, something that they both should be proud of, why not in this one instant not make my life difficult and just corporate for my sake?” But in that moment, it was almost like Julia had read my mind “Lea, life is not fair, and though you want things to be better, you can’t change how mom and dad act towards each other. Think of this as a learning opportunity to give you strength in future obstacles. This is what you are given in this life, you have to deal with the cards given to make the best of it.” Once Julia seemed to be finished with this sort of godly speech, I realize she is right. It wasn’t like I could not come up with that advice myself, the fact of the matter is, when issues like these arise, it triggered something in me and seemed to cloud my judgement. But, that is why Julia is here, to keep my mind from drifting, to bring me to common sense and stability, and most importantly to make me realize that this wasn’t something I couldn’t handle or deal with. My parents craved for everything to be exactly equal and fair, and as the saying goes like Julia told me “life isn’t fair” everything, including Julia and I, cannot be split exactly down the middle. So, when things came to a point where it did not seem fair, one parent would back out just because of the other parent. That is why if I did not have Julia by my side, then I do not know what I would have done without her. She is the only person that understands. Julia is never used as a crutch but rather a guiding hand. I snapped back into reality and realized that Julia and I were still laying here. Our fingers had gotten numb from holding hands for so long. The silence is almost too comforting because I still felt Julia’s presence. Money for college was today’s battle and with the feeling of loneliness weighing down on me, Julia sensed it. Though the aspect of college was my own battle that I needed to persevere and win on my own, because money for college was not something that Julia and I could do together. This was going to be a new step in my life without my sister by my side. So, let's face it, maybe the aspect of money was not the only thing stressing me out about college, because it hit me that Julia was not going to be with me anymore. I don’t want to make it seem like I don’t know how to be on my own, but that was not was it’s about. “Julia, I can always count on you, right”? She sat up to look at me, “Lea, you are a best friend and sister and I'm sorry to tell you that you are never going to get rid of me,” I sighed and let out a laugh “I love you”. She falls back down to stare at the ceiling, “plus lets be real here, were like the best sister duo, a sister tag game, the Savoy sister icons -” “okay, okay, I get” and for the rest of that night, we laid there, is that same position where I started and talked each other’s ears off. Talks of college, life, and our future endeavors we would experience together as a “sister tag time” as Julia liked to call it.
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