familiar it will seem.

today was the first day since the divorce that i truly wished my parents were still together.

i feel as though someone had erased my memory and replaced it all with imagery that i was an orphan, not to be associated with the little girl in the old photographs who had a home, a father, a mother, and sister. and there in my hands i was holding pictures of family i had forgotten i truly had. i feel that i've only dreamt of a family; the people in those photographs aren't us at all. families suffer loss and separation and i've always assumed i am not privileged enough to have the emotions of loss because i never have experienced a death. but am i entirely sure? i feel that i experienced a death when my dad moved away from our family. i experienced a death when my sister moved away from what little family we had left. and another, when my mom moved away from me. i never once have anger towards my mom and my sister because the only thing i could ever hope for them is that they would heal and be happy, and i understood that they had to leave our home to do that. but to watch my dad prepare a mother's day meal for my mom in the home video and see my parents kiss, or watch how my sister tickled me to stop me from crying because i lost a silly game... i suppose i am speechless. i truly feel like a child in that i cannot seem to comprehend how love ends.

this all started because of a box. i was assigned the task of separating duplicate photographs to split between my mother and father and unintentionally playing the game of who deserves this memory the most. in my mind my dad hardly deserves anything seeing as he is the one who chose to leave it. in other ways i wish i could cover every wall in his home with the photographs of us all; my beautiful mother, his children, our home. i think he would go blind with tears.