When I look back at growing up and think about the parts that were hard, I tend to think of the emotional times. In the midst of my parents divorce I spent eighth grade at a small school called “The Toddy Pond School”. There was some irony in the name, since I grew up near the shores of Toddy Pond in Surry, but this was named after another, and was in Swansville, a good 45 minute commute. An alternative school with no grades, multiple recesses playing tag, and show and tell, I named it “The warm and fuzzy school”. The interesting part was that students there with happily married parents were in the minority.

I suppose the worst I ever felt about my parents divorce was alienation when I was younger, and perhaps some frustration in regards to visitation with my father in the years before I started to figure him out. I don’t know how normal it is in a public school these days to come from a broken home, I have to assume much more, that our generation lead having divorced parents into a more casual era. However one thing hasn’t changed, and won’t. Kids are fucking cruel. It’s still bound to hurt when other people twist the knife, even if you don’t know how else it’s supposed to be.

I didn’t know life any different until into my twenties. An ex-girlfriend started making occasional comments about “how good I had it”, implying in some way that my success was more from the opportunities I had than I wanted to admit. I once said something to L about being a white male, and having all off the benefits that come along with that, and she said I had overcome more than I was admitting. Somewhere in the middle of all of this, I still haven’t stopped to think about it a whole lot. Life with my parents the way it was, simply was.

I hope that for n. The circumstances are what they are. It’s terribly unfortunate, but I wish for the consolation of no feelings of loss. Godspeed little guy.