divorced
Sometimes a good divorce is better than a bad marriage.
Oh My Youth...Fleeting and Fast
As a kid, I was reckless. I ran and jumped and played hard, enjoying the thralls of my youth. Climbing trees, riding bikes, scraping my knees and hands at every turn. Falling down just to jump up and exclaim "I'm okay!" making the other kids worried and then laugh because I was never truly hurt. Having all the wonder of a kid, and putting it to good use with an imagination that never left me. I was just as creative then as I am now. My hair wild and my eyes wide, I would dive head-first into any adventure, no matter what that was. My sister and I used to frequently explore the woods behind our childhood home, one time finding a small cabin-like house and never knowing how it got there or how people got to it. There was a dog chained up outside of it and tire tracks next to it, but no sign of a driveway or any sort of path leading to it. We never found that house again, causing us to believe that maybe we had imagined it.
By Crissy Cornwell5 years ago in Families
How to support your child through divorce
A divorce, however amicable, is a change and change can be unsettling. Sometimes the uncertainty of change can be outweighed by the promise of benefits to come but from a child’s perspective, this is not likely to be the case with divorce, in fact, probably quite the opposite.
By Kerry Smith5 years ago in Families
The Only Scarf in the World, Most Beautiful
The Only Scarf in the World, Most Beautiful i Close your eyes: At first the child cannot distinguish in the early morning light whether the soft color at rest upon the sand is the discarded skin of fruit, worn cloth fingered expertly by some grandmother’s hand for the skull or a drift of shell surprisingly gold. Though he knows not yet the words, this child understands that the morning light, like confusion or stupor, is neatly democratic. The drunken green waves, the jade clouds, the juniper hills, the sage seawood, the parakeet heart climbing up his throat. Without question, he admits to himself that the golden object is all he needs this day, running before mother and father have awakened and particularly each moment, dazzling in the winds. In fact, it is a simple scarf, perfumed with a familiar scent, the color of spring pineapple freed from the night before. He entangles himself with as if made for his neck, but he intuits that it was meant for a woman and he bends, like willow or crabgrass in offshore breeze, bowing his body as he stares at the cloth, the sea, the sky and horizon calling and in that moment, this six-year old waits and listens. The world expands, in that moment, with the sea.
By Robert A Black5 years ago in Families
Listen to Your Grandmother and Mother?
The women in my family are fiercely independent. The type of women who owned their own homes back when women didn’t own anything. They chopped their own wood, hauled the wood and started the fire. They were the women who protected their families during home invasions without a second thought to their own safety and left the would-be invaders running away from the 5’3” woman waving an axe, screaming “run, she’s insane”. The women who walked through 4 feet of snow to look for a straw for a dying relative who had cancer who couldn’t swallow in 1970 when straws weren’t found littering everything. These fiercely independent women who would protect their families yet be the most loving women when necessary.
By Dee Mae Elva5 years ago in Families
What does the child feel and think when the parent's divorce?
Each divorce process has two sides to the coin. Although it causes pain and leaves scars, there is a free space for something new, good. It promotes the development of autonomy and is a necessary condition in the development process. If we have read a book in the library of life, then we need to set it aside to make room for a new book.
By Bimal kanta moharana5 years ago in Families
Five Signs That Told Me My Marriage Was All Over.
I guess that there a great many signs my life was heading for the rocks long before the painful slaps in the face woke me up to what was going on behind my back. It's just that the early indications can be so infinitesimally small that you just don't notice them. Of course, holding down a full time job and co caring for three young children is more than enough to distract your attention and tire you out to the point of diminishing your attention to your relationship with your other half.
By Liam Ireland5 years ago in Families
Light
"I am the absence of light" Pushed into the darkness by your callous hand . Stripping me of color consuming me dull, an isolating home like that of the ivory gull The color you left was the blue of the strike remaining on my skin like a faded stain Tints of blue on my arms therein, abiding and binding bruised within. Stoic i remained from your aggressive tone, pelting at me with grayish stones Defined: a woman a human being, you omitted the human using the woman in me You trapped my light silencing my voice, violating my rights no one could help. For in the social light you often had color, blending your fake whited sepulcher Playing around with green and brown, camouflaging seamlessly in your surround In your twisted world you planned my death, "scared of you i was not!" just mindfully cooperating i needed my breath Threats to burn me if i desired freedom an ultimatum caught between "Scylla and Charybdis" I had to pretend and accept all the rules, this eased the belaboring fists of abuse Staying neutral with little bits of color, plain and simple to ease my day to day sorrow Like an abstract mural intertwined not letting you know whats going on in my mind Silently observing your scheming colors, how you mix and manipulate others Because the daily agony which silenced me aphonic was never silent inside my body! I am clearly no philistine like that of yourself, you are filled with dishonesty and filth. Like diluting oil paints with water you and i, two separate layers that cant combine. living a fake life i can not accept! finally ready, i decided its time to use my voice and use it loud to rip off the black shroud Bolting my doors, changing the locks not letting you in was the plan i thought out. Protesting my rights from behind locked doors, trying to let everyone know of your deranged mind. The red rage in your eyes the anger that emerged of an unanticipated surprise that was unknown. Uncovering your dark colors for all to see, the abuse and pain inflicted on me What caused this change? Who gave you the courage? How did you find your colors? For one i am a believer in humanity, i love the colors of diversity I am a woman that knows i have rights, i will not allow your darkness dominate my light. That i did to get rid of your malingering and abusive ways, was remain quiet and i stayed in the dark Remained hidden in the dark, planning the escape out of your prison How dare you murder and maim my emotions! Who do you think you are! you facinorous vile skelm. For my freedom you bared me of everything i owned! I come from the land of the free, you cant deny rights nor safety Years on end injecting your toxic yellow,slowly trying to poison my soul. Thought you succeeded in strapping a rein? or leaving me there in the rain? From all the tears that dripped in the night, the white ray of hope i held on to so tight The dispersion of pain, my reflection of light created a rainbow multicolored with hope and pride. You can never enslave and dominate the ones, that see color in everything and hate none. In the pink, red, orange and yellow the green, turquoise, indigo and violet These are the colors of love, hope and life The colors of diversity acceptance and pride Colors were the reason you couldn't prevail, you now remain trapped in your colorless scale When there is light, one isn't afraid; For darkness is but an illusion in the presence of light When i turned on my light this i knew, that darkness doesn't exist in the absence of you.
By rabia nashabe5 years ago in Families
When Mom Kidnapped Us
When my parents split up, my father threatened to have my Filipina mom deported. So she kidnapped my brother and me. It only lasted a weekend. She felt guilty and brought us back. By then, though, the damage was done. So my father got custody of us. This surprised me because my father was physically abusive towards my mother. In fact, at age six, I remember jumping on his back to try to get him off of her when he was hitting her.
By Maria Leonard Olsen5 years ago in Families
Darren's Dastardly Desertion
Darren, age fifty-three and suffering from a midlife crisis, decided to leave his seventeen year old daughter and wife of twenty-two years for a twenty-five year old drug addicted prostitute. His marriage hadn’t been a happy one for the past three years because he always felt a wanting for things he felt he’d missed out on, mainly the company of young women. Lacking in honor and integrity he made poor choices out of selfishness. Instead of divorcing his wife, he deserted her leaving his family with nothing. Twenty-two years the Swedish immigrant spent married to who she once thought was the man of her dreams. Embittered and hurt she was left after her husband’s betrayal. Helga initially had a difficult time moving on due to a lack of understanding and a need for closure. Her daughter Nicole was more angry than hurt by her father’s unfaithfulness and deserting of his family. Darren had become progressively more detached from his daughter’s life even when they resided in the same household. She turned to her mother for everything especially love and emotional support because from her father she felt none. Mother and daughter struggled for quite sometime. Nasty messages were exchanged between Nicole and her father’s new love Carol. Carol on more than one occasion had gone as far as to threaten the young girl’s life in the most heinous ways imaginable. Darren stood idle as the war went on, he showed no compassion for his daughter, her mother, their financial problems or their feelings of lost. His unmanly behavior was shaping his daughter’s opinion of men, especially African American men. He was a sorry excuse for a father and felt no remorse for it. The drugs helped with that. That is how he and Carol met; Darren experimented with cocaine in an attempt to regain his youth. He was at a party thrown by one of his drug using new friends and bumped into this young blond haired tender. He had no idea that she not only used cocaine but she would also use crack, heroin or crystal meth, which ever was available. He put her up in a hotel for a week that very first night and kept her supplied with money and drugs while he slipped into his other life. Eventually the cat and mouse game became too much for him after several calls to his home from Carol when she had run out of and needed more drugs. Friction in the household led him to one day just pack up and leave his family with a mountain of bills and lacking the means to pay them. Guilt couldn’t sway his decision; he was disillusioned into thinking that the drug and the tramp loved him. Carol became pregnant and needed more from Darren; he provided for her while neglecting his family. She never stopped using during her pregnancy; she presented Darren with false information daily on her pregnancy. One day a month after Carol gave birth to a one pound- seven once baby girl she cleaned out Darren’s account and moved out of their apartment. Darren received notice from his employer that he was on child support less than a month after Carol’s disappearance. Apparently he had missed two hearings on the matter and the amount of his support had already been determined. Letters had been mailed to his home after Carol filed for child support but he never seemed to have gotten them. She provided them with his financial information and the process moved forward. Darren wasn’t even paying child support or alimony to his wife since they weren’t yet divorced. Three days later he got the papers for both his divorce and additional child support.
By Cam Rascoe5 years ago in Families
