Child of My

Children of divorce understand the feeling. If you're going to be all factual and literal about it then they have two homes, two families, two everything. As fun as double the presents can sound to an 8 year old, it's completely different when everything you thought was 'ours' becomes somebody else's 'my'.



Shuttled back and forth every two weeks, my half packed bag was always left about 5 feet from the back door. What's the point in unpacking when in two weeks you'll pack up the same shit, take it to the same place and come back with it less than 48 hours later. My dad's house never felt like it was ours. It was his. All of it. I was afraid to touch things, move things. He told me recently that when he first moved in I would follow him all over the house, from room to room, I couldn't stand being more than 10 feet from him. He uses this as an example of how close we were, how bonded. When he says it I just feel like screaming at him. We weren't close. I followed him because everytime he got up I thought he was leaving us again. Leaving me again.



As a family living in a home everything is ours. Our house, our backyard, our creepy basement. Even though they were probably just talking about the two of them, I felt included in the our. After a divorce they resort to 'my'. My house, my car, my life. After the divorce the thing that hurt the most, that felt the worst, wasn't that my parents were apart or we weren't a family anymore. It was that I felt like I had no home, I didn't belong anywhere. Everything was temporary. I've never really considered myself a child of divorce because my parents get along better now than when they were married. I'm not a child of divorce, I'm a child of my.

Paradise Lost

I've grown up in this place, a place where neighbours wave and say hi as they walk their dog by you as you rake your lawn. It's a place where you run into people you know everywhere, and people always know way too much and not enough about you simultaneously. It's a town that runs on hockey and delusions. I've been here my whole life and although I feel like I need to leave before my life will really begin, I have no idea how.



This is one of those places that postcards are made for. You can wake up in the middle of the night and see a deer walking down the back alley, or watch two parks and wildlife guys chasing a moose across the football field during 3rd period in the library. I've never wondered what my parents saw in this place, why they chose to come back three years after I was born here. I'm just wondering how I'm supposed to see what they saw, knowing what I know.



Living here doesn't guarantee an easy, normal, suburban life. It is definitely a place that can't be judged by appearances. It's a wolf in sheep's clothing.