Product of a Broken Home - Sort of

Early on in the season, I caught an episode of Oprah on TV - okay, I didn't catch the episode per se, I actually watch religiously. This particular show was about adult children from divorced homes. I'm talking 40 something year old men and women crying on stage about how their parents getting a divorce - decades ago - continues to plague their life.

My first thought? How pitiful. I wanted to throw my "Oprah Show Snack" at the television and yell, "grow up and get a life!" I simply couldn't believe these grown ass men and women were sobbing about how daddy left mommy for his secretary 25 years ago and how the nightmare of it all still wakes them up at night. Perhaps I'm numb to it all having grown up in a single parent household. There was no daddy to leave mommy, and if mommy left, I was up Shits Creek.

Flash forward to November when my mom announced she was separating from my step-father. I was devastated! I immediately began to worry about the both of them. Who would help mom bring in the groceries or fix a leaky pipe under the sink? Where would my step father get a home cooked meal from and how would he wash his clothes? Better yet, how could I begin to see them as two separate people and not as one?

Eventually, things fell into place. Mom makes me pick her up from the grocery store and help her bring in those heavy bags; which of course I don't mind. When there is a leak under the sink, she calls the plumber. Not too long ago, I had to use my step-father's car when my battery died, and I found an empty carton of popcorn chicken from Popeyes in the trash. Was that his home cooked meal? Hey, at least he was eating something, right? I even heard he was in the laundry room of his building, washing his own clothes. Who knew? The last time I spoke to him, he told me he was playing around on the computer - something I almost never saw him do pre-seperation.

I guess it goes to show that under insinuating circumstances, strong people can step up to do what they need to do, and it feels good to know that I have strong people in my life. Although if it were up to me they'd still be together, maybe the separation needed to happen for them to rediscover who they really are outside the confinements that marriage can impose.

Boy, I sure can relate to those big 'ol cry babies on Oprah now. But will this divorce make me resentful or develop feelings of abandonment 20 years from now? I doubt it. However, I do understand that feeling of wanting things to stay the same, but usually that's to benefit me, and not the people involved.

My parents get a divorce and I grow up and learn something about myself in the process. I guess every cloud does have its hard to find, heavily veiled, silver lining afterall.