Happy Un-anniversary, Mom and Dad

June 25th will be the 10th anniversary of my parents' divorce. After 26 years of marriage, they separated during the beginning of my senior year - Spirit Week to be exact. Mom, Brandon, and I all moved to an apartment during the separation. The 6 months we lived there was so emotionally up and down it was nauseating. Would they reconcile? Would they divorce? It changed almost weekly. I felt stuck in the middle - always close to my Mom and being there for her, but feeling so sad for my Dad and loving him too. He and my brother have never had a very strong relationship but I was always a bit of a Daddy's Girl, so it was (and still is) hard at times to balance.

In spite of all my parents' issues, I have nothing but fond memories of our apartment life. We lived in the complex where all the San Angelo Outlaws (I think they're the Saints now) lived. I could tell you which apartment belonged to which player. The team captain, I wanna say his name was Mike Vandenberg, lived across the courtyard from us. And the two hotties, Carl and Carl were in our building.
Mom and I tried a diet while we lived there that was similar to Atkins. It stressed eating plenty of bacon, cheese, and grapefruit juice. I still, to this day, crave that combination once in a while. We didn't lose any weight though. The white on white cake Mom would make during our days off spoiled our efforts.
I remember coming home one evening to the smell of chicken cooking in the crock pot and an apple cinnamon candle. It smelled like Thanksgiving. I still buy that apple cinnamon candle every holiday season.
That period of time was roughly the height of mine and Jenna's N Sync obsession. And while the embers still burn on, the flame has long since died down. (That's all I'll say about that.)
I also remember long - very, very long evenings at the kitchen table doing hours of homework. Staying up until midnight or later just working towards graduation. Taking a break from chemistry and eventually rocking myself to sleep in the big pink recliner.
And how could I forget the Student Council sleepover before our trip to Six Flags? With the infamous combustible toast incident? ;)
But I digress...

When Mom finally sat us down and told us they decided to get a divorce, honestly, I was relieved. I know I didn't cry, but I don't remember my brother's reaction. Yes, there is always some sadness when it hits you that your parents don't love each other anymore. And they'll now live in different houses. You'll live with one and go visit the other. That part never seems fair. But truthfully, my parents are better separate than together.

Ten years later, the problem with their divorce now lies in me, yet again, feeling caught in the middle. I know in my heart neither one of them ever wants me in this position, nor do they willingly put me here. But because I love them both so much and want to make things as equal as possible, I get all the good, and all the bad from them both. Our upcoming visit home is a stark reminder to how much divorce can hurt the kids...even when they think they were never hurt by it in the first place.

This trip, that was excitedly planned to visit family and introduce them to the newest Rojas, has now become a point of stress, guilt, sadness, and fear for me. I attempted to split time at each house as equally as possible, but traveling with 4 is harder than traveling alone. When I came home by myself last year, it was easy to spend one night at Mom's and one night at Dad's. Now that we're bringing the whole family, and especially the baby, it has become exponentially harder to make that time equal. What's worse for me, is that I had already told each parent the amount of time we would be spending at their respective houses. Now, after having thought about it more logically, it makes more sense to stay in one location and not have to uproot my growing little family midway through the trip to stay with the other parent. I now have to tell one parent that we will need to stay with the other parent and come visit during the day. This absolutely breaks my heart. In situations like this I find myself wishing that I wasn't such an emotional person. That I could detach from the situation and just say what I need to say and not worry about hurting my parent's feelings.

But I can't.

I can't and it sucks. It has made me physically sick worrying about this. Will it make the time we do spend together awkward? Will there be any bitterness or anger toward the other parent? Am I just overreacting and not giving the shafted parent the benefit of the doubt?

At least there is a valuable lesson or two to be learned in all this.
1. Keep your mouth shut. Had I never told my parents these plans to begin with, I wouldn't have to cancel, thus saving us both plenty of heartache. And me more gray hairs.
2. Next time, stay in a hotel.