My parents had been divorced for as long as I can remember. Only one memory of the two married lingers in my mind. The rest is a blur. I had been so used to divorced parents, that it hadn’t even bothered me: it was simply normal. I grew up in two different houses, in two different neighborhoods, with two different parents. Though it may sound like a struggle to the average person, it was scheduled to me, my life. And everything had remained that way, just fine, up until around the last few weeks of sixth grade. I was a 12 year-old boy, and everything that I knew about my life and my parents was about to change.

I was beginning to see a gradual change in my mother’s behavior. She seemed to be distancing herself from my brother, sisters and I. She went out to bars and clubs so often when we stayed at her house, leaving my 14 year old sister in charge of us kids most school nights. She had began to curse much more often. She was extremely verbal to us. Then she began seeing men: in and out they went, and I only had one thought as a 12 year old boy as to why this was happening. I was simply not happy living there, and she flat out told me that she did not care how I felt about her home. What mother says that to their son? I mentioned some of these issues to my father, and he said that I should talk to my mother. The honest truth was that I was petrified of her. So he told her for me.

She came into my school in 6th grade one day, and demanded the main office she talk to me. My dad had let my mom know of my issues with her, because I was too nervous to. Of course he just had let her know right in the middle of a school day. I was called out of math class, and roughly 40 minutes went by of her shouting and terrible words, throwing curses at me, making me feel even less wanted around her. She would constantly turn it all around on me, and make my father out to be a terrible man, and throw so many heavy and false accusations towards my father and I. I loved my mother, and I still do, but she was out of her mind that day. Barging into school, sending me back to class hungry (I missed lunch) with tears running down my cheeks. I knew that I had made a huge mistake. I should have kept my mouth shut. Though I wonder today, where would I be now if I had kept quiet way back then?

The next few days I stayed only with my dad; things were awkward with my mother and I. Soon, I had to go back. My mother wanted me to learn that my father wasn’t the answer to all of my problems: but neither was she. I had just told my mother that I wasn’t comfortable living in her home, and there I was, in the place I dreaded to escape from. Eventually, my mom sent me to my dad’s house fed up with my so-called “nonsense”, and told me that I had one week to decide where I wanted to rest my head at night. It was up to me to choose one parent over the other, and it was an extremely stressing time.

Two days later, she called me, and gave me quite possibly the best news of my life: to stay where I was, right at my dad’s house. Why was this news so great? This would allow me to live comfortably with a person who respects my feelings. Somewhere that I don’t feel pressured, an ideal environment for a child. Though yes, it was terrible that I considered my mom kicking me out a good thing, but it made me feel so good. As much as I want to say I missed her, I simply did not. I hated going over. I would cry myself to sleep night after night, wondering how I was handling it all. Staying at my dad’s house was to me, almost like a new start, or freedom. I was finally happy again, this time, parted from my mother. But what else could I do? I was not going to continue to live somewhere that did not comfort me, even if she is my mother.

Almost 2 years later, and we are still in a very harsh relationship, especially just recently. I had been parted from my baby sister, who lived at my mother’s house full time. My mom remarried, and had another baby, who I will also never get to see grow up. My mother kicking me out of her house will forever change my life. I can never live a normal life, not without a mother. And as long as she thinks that I don’t want her in my life, she will be terribly mistaken. Because most importantly, I forever lost my mother, who I used to be so close to, I told everything to, let all of my emotions out to. The mother I cried to, and laughed with. Our memories, both good and bad. She can never be replaced, never forgotten about. To this day I continue to wonder what got in between us. There were so many other issues that arose between us that I can’t see what truly caused it all. A wall separating us, the bricks all a blur. Was it her neglect towards us, or the way she made me feel? The constant anger that she took out on us? Her many depressing marriages that she had prior? Her relationship with her parents? I’ll never know for sure what killed the love we once shared. I had once thought she would be there with me until her death. Though it turns out, she caused me mine.