A begining to an ending

                When I was nine my life was pretty great my parents were always there, and made sure my two older sisters and I had anything we wanted and needed. One night my parents called us in the living room after dinner, I thought I was getting in trouble for falling asleep in class. My mom was crying and my dad looked annoyed, my dad just blurted out,

“We’ve decided to get a divorce” before he could go on my mom stops him “I didn’t decide anything”.

Immediately my eyes swell up and I just feel the cold wet tears run down my flushed face. My dad goes on to say he’s got an apartment and he’ll be moving out in a couple days. My mom’s face made me sick to my stomach I’d never seen her cry like that.  From that night on laid a new platform for “parenting”. My mother would yell at my dad every time we went to his new apartment, and when we were with her she’d just yell about him. Trips to the mall were often after they separated new clothes and a new movie every weekend, all on dad’s credit card.  They began to argue about when we got to see each other, on birthdays my mom would give us clothes and my dad would show up with a bike or new electronic device.

When it was happening it was great all the presents and money, but I had never seen my parents like this. How could two adults be happy all the time and then not love one another anymore? At the time I didn’t know that when they sent us to our rooms that they were arguing, and fighting. I turned ten when their divorce was final. I knew everything that had gone on in their relationship the problems and the love. I knew too much.

I now know the struggle my mom went through trying to remain sane in front of three little girls. But from then on I looked at them differently. Two children fighting over toys is what they acted like, throwing mean thoughtless jabs at each other’s ego. They told us all the time if you have nothing nice to say don’t say anything at all. Well needless to say they did not practice what they preached. My parents are better now they’re actually still best friends on holidays and birthdays they both come together not just for us but because they care. No matter how they are now I remember the years where they were ripping at each other’s throat to get a rise from the other how stupid and selfish they looked in my eyes.

Their ending allowed me to begin seeing these people in a light I didn’t turn on.

the foggy water

In my neighborhood in Laporte our streets flooded with even the slightest of storms. school days when it flooded me at the time five with a late birthday not yet in school and my mom would leave early to pick my older sisters, Desiree eight and Brittany seven from the school. We would drive down our street the seamingly fast my mom's truck would seperate the water just for us to pass through. We were always asked to go outside and play on those days, and always denied. Our mother who at the time seamed like a dictator for not letting her three little girls go play in the dirty muddy water. We always demanded reasoning for her ludacris decission and she always said because that water is nasty and we could really get hurt and sick and its not the same as the pool. The next time it flooded my mom was at work, working compressed weekends at the hospital. My dad was steady trying to keep us entertained, but all we wanted to do was go play and if not, just watch from the living room window. As we watched the kids ride their bikes and play in the river of our neighborhood, our dad came in with our rubber boots and a box of heavy duty trash bags. Confused he put them on us and made a head hole and two arm holes. With our "ponchos" and rubber boots we went outside and emerged into the cold icy greenish water. Our friends were  almost as shocked as we were to be out. We played for what seamed to be forever my sisters rode their bikes around and pulled me through the beach in our front yard. When it started to rain again  we all went back inside before the lightening came. My dad threw us into the shower before my mom made it home. When she did get home she almost immediately knew mostly because of our rubber boots at the front door.She yelled at my dad for a while then told us i'm glad y'all had fun but this is going to be the last time. i did not care i had so much fun and honestly thought we would be able to do it again. But soon after that last storm we had a bad flood that reached rhe garrage. After that the city did construction on our street and drainage system, and it never really flooded again. But on that day we got to be like all the other kids on the block and pretend for that day that we did not have an over-bearing mother but the coolest dad.