The End of an Era

So, here's where I finally tell you what's had me twisted up for the week: On Tuesday evening my Mom phoned to tell me she'd asked Daddio for a divorce.

On the 15th December my folks will have been married 30 years. And I get it. When the reality that you've been married 30 years sets in and your realise you probably have another 30 years of life left in you (my folks are in their early 50s) I guess you do some serious evaluating.

I'm not angry, with either of them. I know them. I've never understood what made their relationship tick and I've questioned their likelyhood of divorce since I was in high-school and knew what divorce was. They just never did it so I guess I let my guard down a bit and I'll be honest and say it was a shock. But I don't live there anymore and I don't see their daily interactions, so probably it wasn't much of a shock ... except for the actually going thru with it bit. I think that's always a bit of a shock, even to the person who actually instigates things.

I'm upset. I'm upset about the impact this is going to have on my family and on me. I know they'll both be okay and they'll survive and recover from the pain and the loss of the habit that having someone in your life for 30 years brings. But I don't know if I'll have the Christmases I cherish anymore (esspecially since I was so looking forward to going to Cape Town for one of *my* family Christmases this year ... something I haven't had since 2007). And it's the little things like that that are really upsetting me. The not knowing the upcoming impact on how we've always done things before, when Mom and Dad were a unit.

I'm thinking about the trivial things because the bigger ones make sense to me. I don't have any fundamental issue with the decision they've made. I'm okay with them getting divorced if it'll make them happier. I know neither of them really experienced life before they were married and had me. And I know from the last 10 years of my life how much a person needs that. Hell, I am still figuring things out for myself.

The scariest thing really for me (aside from the general worry about each of them as individuals that they will be okay and are getting whatever emotional support they need - although it's damn hard for a concerned daughter to provide it in this case!) is how it's affected my outlook on things, my life and my relationships. In the space of 48 short hours it's made me question all sorts of things. Things I grant you I was questioning already, but it's brought them to the forefront of my mind, like the need to actually get married at all, and why/how people manage to stick it out "forever" being the top of the list that jump to mind, and based on all of the above how exactly I will end up having children and the life I imagine for myself when it seems so contradictory to how things actually work out! Enough about that tho.

I guess I also feel a little guilty about being upset about it. I mean I've been thru enough break-ups including one where I had to take my stuff and move out of my safe-place, my home (because it wasn't really mine, it was his ... although after 2 years of living there it really did feel like home to me!) to understand how hard this must be for them and how hard even just making the decision must've been. And here I am being upset about how it'll affect me. It's their lives, they're adults, they need to experience and live life as much as I do and if that means it's not together then so be it. It's very peculiar having all these contradictory feelings.

So yeah, a delightful week as week's go.

And if you're wondering why I only told Varen about it 24hrs after I found out a) I didn't exactly want to talk about it (although his parents got divorced earlier this year too) and b) we were still in that "circling" phase post argument where you don't know if things are fine again yet or if you're still not talking to each other and I certainly wasn't talking to him about something like this while we ourselves were in that sort of weird place.