Family is a great thing to have, and most people have someone their own age to be with. These are people that replace any desired siblings, but all of this is like a mirror that can be shattered if we decide to grow up too soon and get involved in problems that should be out of our reach.

It all began when I was about 6 years old, on the day that my parents brought me to live in our new home. When we arrived, the excitement was overwhelming. My heart was buzzing in comparison to anyone else, yet at the same time I could feel my palms sweating at the thought of living with my uncle’s family for the first time. The house was a red brick home with a small garden in the front and a balcony on the second floor. This excited me greatly because my uncle’s family was going to live on the first floor which meant that my family would have the balcony. Then, my parents unlocked the doors and I immediately started exploring. The house was completely empty except for a ghost sheet fluttering along with the summer breeze.

This is the point in which my uncle’s family arrived. We were all happy to see each other, but me and my cousin Jacky were especially thrilled because we were finally going to be able to play with someone our own age. Since that day, we were inseperable. We did everything together: homework, we hung out at school, and we played together for endless hours. Our favorite thing to do was to play with Barbies. We loved to comb their golden blond hair and dress them up in all sorts of different styles. This is how our lives remained for many years, until our parents started fighting. Jacky and I were 12-13 years old and we both realized that our parents were distant. They no longer got together on Sunday evenings to talk and have a good time; in fact, they hardly spoke a word to each other. This was unsettling but even more was that we constantly heard our dad’s fighting when they thought we couldn’t hear. It was usually about money, and it seemed that they could never come up with a solution to fit both their needs.

Soon after came the problem that changed everything. To say the truth, it was not a very big problem, but both parties responded as if it was the end of the world. The problem was that my dad threw away some empty, cardboard boxes that were cluttered around the attic. It turned out that they belonged to my older cousin who was living with her husband in the basement apartment. The whole experience was more like WWll than a family dispute. Never knowing who the enemy truly was and not caring whether the fighting affected anyone else.

Things went on like this for several days and during that time, me and Jacky started getting involved in our parents’ bickering. We both felt like we had to get involved and stand up for our parents. Before long, we confronted each other and the entire scene was like the final battle in war. Both of us fighting and refusing to let the other win. By the time we finally ran out of things to say, the air around us had become much heavier. Both of us looked into the other’s eyes as it dawned on to us that things would never be the same. We were never going to as close as we were and it’s exactly what happened. At this point we talk every once in a while, but things changed.

Due to this experience, I have realized that getting involved in things that don’t concern us can have a great impact on our lives. Right now, my parents talk to me about their problems but I stop them at a certain point. I do this because I do not want that chapter in my life to be rewritten with someone new.