Obvious Bastard Child

My parents are getting a divorce. I am sad, angry and upset … which makes me ashamed because I am twenty-two years old. I don’t need the “even though mommy and daddy don’t love each other anymore, we still love you” speech. I am not angry with my mom or my dad because it has been apparent that they were unhappy and that this was inevitable. It’s not like their marriage was ever some ideal of unending love and devotion, but it was a symbol of hope that I had for peaceful co-existence (romantic, eh?). Honestly, I am not huge supporter of the institution of marriage. I just can’t get behind something that is so steeped in church politics (what isn’t though, right?) and exclusionary. Behind all this “fight the Man” facade is a scared kid who just wants to be a part of a normal family. At some point, we all have to accept the change that the passage of time brings … but I don’t wanna and you can’t make me.

I can feel myself going slowly through the grieving process and given a week or so to let it go through my system, I will be fine because I hope that I am old enough to appreciate the situation. I have watched them grow into different people over the years and the simple fact is that they don’t really like each other anymore. It hasn’t been a hostile transition, but certainly a drawn-out one. My parents married seventeen years ago at my insistence on not going to kindergarten an obvious bastard child. My birth was clearly unplanned and their relationship, though (I believe) not conceived solely on the anathema that was me, was in part prolonged by my continued insistence on breathing in my first years of life. But what is really making me feel like rubbish is what my recent tribulations have really put them through … not only worrying about me and my associated hazards, but being forced to navigate the situation with someone you don’t really get along with.