How do you know when it’s over? In the movies, a concert, or theatrical production, the curtain comes down and the lights come back on, indicating that your time is up. If only it were that simple when it came to relationships with other people. Having that huge clue would be oh-so-helpful from time to time.
And I’m not just talking about romantic relationships here, although that certainly is as good a place as any to start. You meet, start spending time together, “fall in love” and begin to find your way and how you want to define your existence as a couple. You may decide to move in together, get married, have children, and buy a house or any number of things that signify that you are on the same page. You are in sync with this person and the path that you want to travel in life. You go to parties, weddings, funerals, and the entire myriad of days and months and years that evolve. Many people even begin to almost see you as a singular entity…kind of scary in some respects.
But what happens when that vision changes for one of you? Or you ignored the fact that you were not in sync like you had supposed at the beginning? The longer amount of time you spend with someone, the more you invest in them – physically sharing living spaces, emotionally sharing experiences, and then ultimately historically as time marches on.
The more your lives are intertwined, the more difficult it becomes to cut ties when things become acrimonious, or maybe just stagnant. Many people stay together simply because the thought of untying all of those knots is simply too overwhelming for rational thought. Or they stay together because they think they are doing their children a disservice by separating. But staying where you are is still making a decision…even if it is the path of least resistance or the most financially convenient.
I just learned that my parents, after forty-one years of marriage, are going their separate ways. In some ways, I couldn’t have been more shocked. You would think after all of this time together that there wouldn’t be any reason for them to call it quits. After all of the things that they have been through together, how could anything jeopardize the life that they had built together?
And yet here I am, attempting to make sense of it all. I am trying to be supportive to both of them, and that is not proving to be an easy task, especially when it comes to keeping my own thoughts to myself. In some respects I feel like I have become the parent, and I was certainly not at a point in my life where I wanted to parent my own parents (not that this ever comes at an optimal time).
Of course I want the best for my parents, and I realize that this is not my decision to make. So as I am watching the curtain come down on my parents’ marriage, and something I have known all of my life, I am left with that lingering question when you come to the end of the movie and you’re scratching your head and asking yourself, “Is this all there is?” Even if I could hit the rewind button, it’s likely I would still end up here.
As I move into a new chapter of my life with the rest of the children of divorced parents, I hope both my mom and dad find the happiness that they can no longer find together. I love them too much to think otherwise.
Theme Song #11: Had Enough by Lifehouse http://youtu.be/6VMkdvNCFNU
Always your little girl,
Selina
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