The Only True Nightmare

by Starke
(Oakland, California)

One of the worst moments in my childhood was when my parents told us that they were going to get a divorce.

My brother and I were still in elementary school and we barely understood the concept of divorce. We had very little idea what was happening, all we knew about then was a lot of screaming going on in the house.

When my parents finally got different apartments, it was very difficult for me and my brother to go back and forth, never really being completely sure where home was. I think that eventually we learned to deal with the situation; this was real life, this is how things are and sometimes happened.

But nothing could be worse than that single moment when we realized that everything that we had taken for granted was going to be shattered and replaced with a new reality, one that wasn't going to be as comfortable or easy.

You might say that that was the moment when we both grew up as people, and our childhoods were over. We still continued to live and act as children, but from thereon we had a certain cynicism that normal children really shouldn't have. It was the first day of the rest of our lives.

Eventually both our parents got remarried, and we began to understand and enjoy our new lives. But there will be nothing that can compare to how things were when we were small children and I talk about those memories quite often with my younger brother.