Memoir - Rough Draft

My Parents Divorce

It was a winter night sometime in December, and my brothers and I were upstairs. We lived at the top of a big hill, 3507 Vintage Trail was the address, in a neighborhood called: The Fairways. This was a three-story house, including the basement, in suburban Atlanta, Georgia. I had lived my entire life in that house, and in my fifth grade mind, I had no plans on leaving. That is until my parents hollered for us to meet them downstairs. My brothers and I were just little kids, anxiously waiting for Christmas to come, and hoping school would never start again. Once we heard the yelling of our parents, my twin brother, Nick, and younger brother, Alex, took off. Everything was a race between my brothers and me, weather it was finishing dinner, doing our homework, or just going down the staircase, we were battling. I went down the first five carpet steps, took a hard right turn, down the next twenty or so, took the last right turn, and leaped for the ground, skipping the last few steps. I had won the race, like normal, and turned to point and laugh at my brothers still flying down the stairs. But when I turned around and saw my mom and dad at opposite ends of the fireplace telling us to sit between them, I knew something was wrong. My mom looked sad, and my dad, with his Christmas-like red button down long-sleeved shirt, hugged Alex. The fire burned behind our backs, and I was nervous and scared to find out what was going on. My mom then turned to us and told us that she was going to divorce my father. When I heard these words, I could not look up any longer. I fixed my eyes on my chocolate lab, Coco, and realized what just happened. My mom went on to tell us that she was going to take my brothers and I with her to live in her hometown, Tampa, Florida, but assured us “everything was going to be alright.” My life just took a dive, and I knew everything was not going to be alright. I was leaving my dad, my friends, house, everything, and it was extremely tough. Soon thereafter, my brothers and I were excused from the “family meeting” and we went back upstairs. This time, however, there was no racing. Once upstairs, Alex and I met Nick in his room because it was in the middle. We all gathered on Nick’s big green bed and cried together.

“I can’t what just happened” Nick said. “What are we going to do Chris?” “I don’t know.” I replied. Nick, still with tears in his big brown eyes, went on to say, “Would if I do not want to leave dad, or at least Georgia? I want to stay here with all of my friends.” “Me too Nick, I would love to stay here, but we can’t because mom and dad don’t love one another anymore.” I said. Nick replied, with anger, by saying, “But mom never told us why she decided to divorce dad, nor did she ever say she did not love him!” “Nick,” I said, “I know this is extremely hard on us, but there is nothing we can do. We are moving to Florida whether we like it or not.”

The summer before my sixth grade was when my family, without my father, moved to Florida. It was a couple weeks before middle school started, and I was in a foreign place. I knew my two little brothers and that was about it. School came sooner than I expected and or wanted, I cannot remember. Days went by but things were not going well. It was painful seeing other kids with their longtime friends in the hallway, eating at those nasty circular lunch tables, and in desks throughout my different classrooms. It was also painful talking to my dad over the phone each day because I just wanted to be there with him. I remember one of the hardest things was not having my dad hug and wish me goodnight. Some people think that’s something small, but it was a big deal because I had it the first twelve years of my life. Sometimes I cried, just because I missed my old life, but I made sure nobody would find out. I did not anyone to know, especially my mom, that it was really difficult trying to make the transition to Florida.

Living in Florida was hard alone, but I was also faced with a bigger challenge. Because I was the oldest sibling, I considered myself as the man of the house. My mom could not possibly do everything by herself, so I felt like it was my job to help. While my brothers played video games, watched television, and did their homework, I was doing chores around the house. Cleaning dishes, washing clothes, vacuuming, you name it, and I knew how to do it in sixth grade. Don’t get me wrong, I made time to do the fun things like watch TV and play games, but I was not able to as much as Nick and Alex.

Most of my free time ended up getting spent on sports a few weeks into the young school year. It was baseball season, and there was no way I was not going to play. Baseball had been a key part of my life. I had played every year since I was three years old, and the one thing that was not going to change because of my move to Florida was going to be baseball. Tryouts were finally here; I stepped up to the white plate, dug my feet into the hard, brown dirt, and swung away. The batter’s box was my comfort zone. All of my struggles and worries about living in Florida seemed to vanish while on the field. I performed my best, and boy did it pay off. Suddenly other kids started to talk to me, and it made me feel as if I was not invisible after all. The next day, in science class, I saw one of the kids that were at tryouts with me. He was a huge kid who hit many home runs the day before. Stephen was his name, and I decided to man up and go sit next to him. We talked about tryouts, and got to know each other. The next day Stephen asked me to sit next to him and from that point on, I had a best friend.

Looking back on my parents’ divorce is still hard. I never knew exactly why my mom wanted to leave my dad in the first place. Both my mom and dad met new people later on, after the splitting. My dad ended up remarrying someone, but that was a huge mistake. My father got a divorce from his new wife, and now he is single again. My mom, on the other hand, was in a relationship for many years. My mother was never happy with her new man, and she just recently broke up with him. So, why does this involve me? I am just hurt and confused as to why my mom and dad ever split up because neither has found happiness. They always seemed happy with one another, as far as I can remember, and of course my brothers and I were happy in Atlanta. But, now I realize everything is for a reason. If it was not for the move to Florida, I would not have challenged myself. I was forced to grow up, make new friends, and learn to deal with difficult situations. I believe I have become a better man since the divorce, and it is helping me in college. I have already gone through meeting new people, and caring for myself, so the transition is not hurting me as much. I have been away from my dad for some time, so I know how to cope with missing my mom. I have an advantage over many other people because I encountered a life altering event as a child, and that event was the divorce of my mother, Tina, and father, Dave.