I’ve never considered myself a mind reader to any degree, but that day when my parents called me into the living room for a premiere family meeting (a phrase that they never used), I knew what they were going to say before they opened their mouths. Typically I am not one to forgive and forget and this was no exception.When they struggled to spit out the words "we’re getting divorced” I booked it out of the room. Why was it so hard for them to say this? They were the ones at fault. They caused it, they caused it, they caused it the voices inside my head shrieked, and they haven’t stopped.

The first step of grief is denial; but I had been in denial before long before I expected I would ever be grieving. When my dad asked how I would feel about him moving out. How do you think I would feel? When my dad started sleeping downstairs. Im a lot smarter than you think. When the joint bank account was disconnected. Yes, I knew the password. When my parents stopped kissing and hugging. I sat by and digested these events. I took them in, I took them in and for a long time I never let them out. Not to my friends, not to my brother and not to my parents.

About two months after my parents told me the not so shocking news, my mom moved to a duplex near the South Waterfront. It had “old Portland charm” she said. This is not your place, this is not our place. But my brother and I begged to differ. We were the bottom residents and my mom’s mom the top resident. Sure, the house was nice and it was close to some really cool things: a park and a tunnel, where I spent too much of my time and had a conversation with a certain someone. Hey, nice to meet you. Where have you been? Stella, look at me. I looked and never looked back, didn’t tell a soul. It was decided by the court along with some jumbled suggestions from my parents that we would rotate between the two houses on a weekly basis. It quickly became a routine system. Systematic suffering.

I never thought that I would have to pick sides, and in reality, I didn’t. But I felt like I had to. Side with my mom and piss my dad off. Side with my dad and piss my mom off. It was in the agreement and of my parents best judgement that they would do their best to not criticize or talk bad about the other parent around the children. Ask me how I know that? Of course they wouldn’t show me their phones or give me their email passwords even if I asked (which I had numerous times), so I began one of my favorite hobbies to date snooping. Does that make me a bad person? While others would consider this trait conniving and an “invasion of privacy” I have found out many useful things with this method. And I thank myself everyday. Possible cheating scandals, drug and alcohol stints, and potential boyfriend/girlfriend leads.

I had decided that I would become numb. And it wasn’t absentminded. I knew it was bad, I knew I shouldn’t but I did anyways. Buckle down and get through my seventh grade year, not let this affect me and deal with it during the summer. Bottling up my emotions was the apparent solution. It wasn’t lying, just avoiding the truth. I put off telling my friends except for one, for almost a full year. Processing these emotions was like being on a rollercoaster. Boy does that sound cliched? You never know when you will hit a bump and push yourself over the edge. I never pushed myself over the “edge” because I had the luxury of a few solid years of marriage and could recognize what true love-- or at least getting along-- looked like and how what I was currently experiencing was so far from that. I went back and forth from adopting a warrior type persona at home, to a smart, untouched disguise at school.

I thought I was above my friends for the longest time. Somehow I was cooler, smarter and better since I had gone beyond the shell of trips to New Seasons and family dinners. The West hills dream. I had never been able to afford the Abercrombie or live with myself while I was wearing it. I never thought it was right to gossip, but I chimed in with whatever I could that would make our clique (another thing I was against but endured) ooh or aah.

I frowned at the attention that I got because my parents were not married anymore. The fake “I'm so sorry” that family friends and even distant relatives tried to muster up when they saw us. We were not the cute little kids with missing teeth anymore. People felt they had to pity us even though we didn’t ask for it. Neither did we ask for the therapist. But I would prefer to not launch myself into that, (I have some explicit opinions about the psychology field).

My pet peeves really blossomed during this time. Little things began to bother me. I hated the girls who acted better than everybody but didn’t know it, even though I was one. Did that mean I hated myself? Maybe just a little bit. I was envious of the love that my friends had found. I was jealous of my friends perfect families so I got mad and pushed them away. I longed to come home and see both parents cooking dinner. I wanted to go to the beach with my mom and dad. I stunned myself with my actions and words. I never thought so many hateful words could fly out of my mouth at a time when I made a mistake on something as simple as tying my shoe. I got mad at myself for not performing the way I did before I had an excuse. Although, I never let it become an excuse.

I hate the word divorce. As a single word and as the victim of it. This vicious traumatic thing is not a single event. It is a cycle between good days and bad days. Everlasting effects will chase you forever.

It is not all bad. That took me a long time to realize. And I will never be quite finished. After many out of body tantrums and insane arguments, my take on this has changed. When I spent insurmountable amounts of time away from home and only communicated with my parents through yelling and insults that was all I could think about. Nothing good will come out of this. All bad. All bad forever. What I once thought was a giant step backwards, I now realize what a progressive and productive step in the right direction. I am proud of who I am because of going through this. And who I will continue to be/become because of it; it never ends really. This struggle has shaped me into a kind of person that I never thought I would become. I have learned that this mess is not mine. It's better to feel pain than nothing at all.