I don’t remember a time when my parents weren’t fighting. Sure, there was times when instead of yelling at each other behind closed doors they’d write each other letters and emails and long text messages. The lulls in the yelling last longer when I was younger. As if the tide of the ocean was low only really drowning the beach sand every few years. As the years past the ocean got angrier and angrier, swallowing the ocean as well as the rest of my family whole. Arguments when from loud conversation in the next room to yelling and screaming as doors were slammed in an attempt to block out the attacks.
The doors kept nothing out, neither did the walls, or the blankets that I pulled over my head in an attempt to forget what was real. I remember being around 10. This was the very first time the ocean had grown so large and so violent. Laying in my bed at midnight with the pillow over my head trying to block out the words that weren’t even directed at me but hit me with just as much power. Hearing my father insult my mother, about money, about chores, about responsibilities, most of which I didn’t even understand at the time, hit me like a brick. Every word battered my 10 year old body until I finally cried myself to sleep in the late hours of the night. And every morning I’d wake up and act like nothing had happened, like I hadn’t heard my father call my mother a “selfish cold-hearted b****.” And I’d go to school thinking that maybe if I ignored all of it, then eventually it would go away. I was right it did go away but only to come back stronger and harder than ever because problems this big are not easily ignored.
When times had been particularly hard, my father told me to pack up. I burst into tears thinking that my mother had had her last straw and that we were leaving. But this was not the case. My father said that he was taking us to Yellowstone, a place that we had not been to in years, which was surprising considering that we’d gone at least 3 times a year when I was younger. Two days later I was in the back of the car along with my little sister and my father got in. He told me I could sit in the front seat, my favorite past time and current biggest argument with my little sister was front seat privileges. I asked about my mother and my dad said that she wasn’t coming. This was just a trip to get away from her.
I was melancholy the whole trip. My dad could tell, and instead of trying to help, he yelled, just like he always did. The only thing my dad could ever do was yell. Hard not to when you have a natural born talent for being loud and intelligent. I was worried that the staff of the hotel would get a complaint about us, so I suppressed my hurt, it wasn’t hard for me to do. I’d been doing it for years. When you have a father that can yell at you at the top of his lungs for hour upon hour, you learn to sit down, shut up, and nod so that it’ll be over and done with.
When the weekend trip was over we arrived back at home to my mother doing laundry. I walked back out the door to grab my bag and I walked upstairs to find my parents door shut, muffled voices spit out anger. That night an explosion was avoided. As I was about to fall asleep after the voices had finally stopped, my bedroom opened to my mom. My poor sweet mother, he face red and her make up smear she asked, “Is it alright if I sleep in here?” 10-year-old little me didn’t know it but it was all downhill from this night.
Over the next 2 years, tide warnings began to blink. The water was beginning to rush in quickly, but it also succeeded just as quickly. My dad packed a bag and said, “Goodbye and good luck with your life,” 7 times over the next 2 years. Each time was made a big deal of and tears were shed. Each time he came back, over and over again. It happened so often that it got to the point where I didn’t even worry, I just knew he’d be back tomorrow.
Then my father found a brain tumor that had been growing for nearly my whole life inside his head, about to burst. My parents anger was assuaged for nearly a year. Both thinking that the tumor was the cause of all their problems that they'd ever had with them. My father went through brain surgery and my mother gave birth to my little brother. . There was a single moment of peace as the eye of the storm passed over us. My tiny boat loaded with the five members of my little family cracked and leaking, finally got a break. That is until it actually did get a break, but a real break split right down the middle.
I don’t remember the exact moment when I could tell that things were going back to how they were before. But I remember seeing it in the bags under my mothers eyes after she came home from work , being the only one supporting a family of five in a three story house was not an easy task. No matter how many times my father said that he’d go out and get a job he never did, and to this day still hasn’t, even though it’s been over three years since his surgery and he revocation of his bar card, ruining his further career as a lawyer which he’d studied in school for 12 years. I remember hearing it in the cries that my mother stifled from the bathroom across the hall. There was really no exact moment that things had gone back to before, because things had never changed from before.
The fights grew louder and louder, until every other night my siblings and I huddled in the basement as far away from our parents as we could just to try and stop the voices. I remember being with my friends and we had nowhere to go so I volunteered my house, that was until I stood on the front doors for only a moment listening to my parents scream at each other before turning around and saying, “Actually nevermind we can’t go to my house. Let’s walk down the street.” and I turned to head down the block trying to put as much distance between me and that house, not even checking to see if my friends were following.
I remember sitting in the room that I’d lived in for nearly 14 years and realizing that this place felt like anything and everything except home. And I certainly remember the day that my mother couldn’t take it anymore. She moved out of my fathers room. I remember hearing the tap of chords against the wall as she dragged her things down the hall into my sisters room where she spent the remainder of her nights in that house.
That’s when it got really bad. Every other night or so I’d hear the angry stompings of my father emerging from his room (which he rarely did and still ever does) and pushing his way down the hall and throwing the broken door of my little sisters room. He’d say something, something that would add coals to an already raging forest fire. He’d insult my mother or say something sarcastic and biting about the way that she parented, and then he’d walk off simply walk off and go back into his room and shut the door. My mother of course had to defend herself against the man she’d loved for over 21 years. That was how it always started.
I’d dread hearing any sort of footsteps in the hallway. Dread the possibility that my father would open my door and insult my mother and then just expect me to take his side. My father always wanted us involved. Some nights he’d bring me and 11-year-old sister and my 4-year-old brother down into the living room, and he’d yell and scream at us about all the horrible and terrible things my mother had done (Almost all of which was enormously exaggerated) as my mother sat right next to us tears carving lines into her face.
People say that seeing your mother is the worst heartbreak you can ever go through, and if that’s true, then I’ve certainly been through a lot of heart break. My father would yell and argue with my mother right in front of us weekly. And he’d do it for hours and hours, until he was red in the face and everyone else was in tears. It went on like this for months.
My dad snapped. He went crazy. I remember the last straw for my mother. My dad was furious, and My mother, My siblings and I were terrified. My dad screamed and screamed, telling us that he was buckling down, saying about how much s*** we were full of and how we’d never amount to anything because we couldn’t take a little yelling. This wasn’t just a little yelling. His voice was at a volume so high that it not only hurt our ears but made us flinch when it was directed near us. My dad wanted to talk to the kids, but I couldn’t let him do that. I stood in the hallway watching my parents yell and scream at each other standing in front of the door, keeping my father from getting in. My legs were trembling so badly but I didn’t want my dad anywhere near my little siblings. I stood there for hours and cried there for hours as well, but my father was not going to get past me.
That was the end of everything. My parents never came right out and told us, “We’re getting divorced.” But we could tell. Especially after hearing my mom yell, “What more do you want? I already gave you joint custody with no request for child support at all.” My mom wanted to move out in October of 2013, but my father asked her to say until February 1st so that she could get back on his feet. She did. Although I still have no idea why because he didn’t get back on his feet and continued to be the biggest a**h*** I’ve ever me. She moved out, into an apartment of her own, and she got better, better than I’d seen my mother in years. She lost weight and I saw her happier than she’d been in years.
And so the tide drowned the beach, and everything on it including my “quaint” little family. But it cleaned the beach, made way for new things and better things to come along.