My daily 7th grade life was waking up and hearing the usual: arguing, yelling, things being thrown, and my brothers running into my room.
My mom had been married for seven years to a great man. I was six when they first got married, and life was good until 2015. It was then that my mom and my stepdad had days of silence or days of nonstop arguing. Anger filled my house for months until finally enough was enough. My mom and stepdad had a very messy divorce. Custody battles, blame, and accusations filled the courtroom for a year. Towards the end, grudges had formed and life was everything I thought it wouldn’t be.
I was emotionally devastated by the divorce, before, during, and after. But, surprisingly, I am a better person because of it.
During the end of my sophomore year, two of my best friends got into an argument over a misinterpreted rumor. They started to argue online and at school. When my parents got divorced, I was powerless. I could only observe, but with my friends I knew that there was something I could do. I spoke with each of them individually and reminded them of their history and how important they are to each other. I brought up how much time we were losing together as friends and how important their friendship is. My friends spoke during lunch and continued to work out their problems-all because I brought them together. I became the peacemaker and reunited two of my great friends. If I had not experienced my parents divorce, I probably would not have developed the desire to help.
I once again benefited from my experience when my boyfriend broke up with me the beginning of my sophomore year. Of course, I was very sad and disappointed. I recognized, though, that this was a high school relationship, and I was still very young. After seeing my parents not respect the value of marriage, I was able to separate the depth of relationships. I recognize that there is a big difference between a high school romance and a marriage. It’s not that I do not respect a high school romance but rather, I greatly respect marriage.
A few months ago, a friend and I fought over a petty disagreement, I was hard-headed, and I was set on having her out of my life. Days passed and not one word was said between us. We unfollowed each other on social media, ignored each other in the halls, and acted as if our friendship never existed. It wasn’t until a week later that I realized that losing a long-time friend was not worth it. Losing someone over small gossip or disagreements is never worth it, especially if communication can avoid it. We talked about the true conflicts in our friendship, and both worked on fixing them. There was little direct communication in my mom’s divorce and because of that, problems rose. Since then, I’ve learned how important communication is.