It’s been a while since I’ve posted here, and truthfully… it’s because I’ve been going through it. These past few months have been heavy. Who knew that 26 years after my parents’ first divorce, I’d be testifying in their third?
Don’t worry, I’ll be spilling the delicious and unbelievable details here in due time. But for now, I’m still getting you up to speed. It’s a long one today.
The Hobby That Built and Broke Us
At some point in my childhood, my dad and two older brothers got into motocross. Naturally, that meant my mom, my older sister, and I were left on the sidelines. After all, motocross isn’t something you can do in a dress.
Still, I’d cruise around the pits on my little pedal bike and that’s how I met Candace. We were the same age, and she was a wild-child tomboy who thrived on chaos. We instantly clicked and she became my best friend, and our dads bonded too. We can call her dad, Dominic.
Then Christmas of 1999 rolled around. My dad gave my baby brother a 50cc dirt bike. Candace got one too. Meanwhile, I was still pedaling in circles while they got to tear up the dirt. But lucky for me, my brother wasn’t into his bike… and I saw my window of opportunity.
Between me and my mom, we convinced my dad that we needed bikes too. She got one, I took over my little brother’s (with training wheels at first), and before long, we were both riding and racing. I was five years old and had found something that made me feel powerful, free, and alive.
Even now, 26 years later, I can honestly say there is nothing I love more than motocross. It imprinted on my soul. There is a small population of people who know what I mean when I say, motocross is the only thing in this world I can say I am truly, effortlessly passionate about.
Then There Was Screaming
Around that same time, I started waking up to my parents arguing almost every night. Each night was worse than the last. One night I remember my mom screaming, “I’ll just be with Dominic then!”
At nearly six years old, this sent me into a full-blown panic. In my young mind, divorce was a one-way ticket to hell. That night, I stayed in bed and prayed as hard as I could. I begged God that my mom would not leave my dad and damn us all to hell. I begged for forgiveness on behalf of my parents. I begged for him to have mercy on us.
God did not answer my prayer… and I don’t think he forgave us either.
The years that followed that night were the hell promised by divorce.
Not long after the sleepless nights started and the prayers went unanswered, my mom sat all of us kids down in the living room. I remember her face, serious but oddly calm. She told us she and my dad were getting a divorce.
“You get to choose who you live with.”
Just like that. No guidebook. No real explanation. Just an open-ended, life-altering choice laid at the feet of children.
My two older brothers immediately chose to stay with my dad. My older sister, my younger brother, and I went to live with Dominic. Yes, that Dominic, Candace’s dad. The same man my mom had screamed about that night. My dad’s buddy.
Though messy, I remember feeling a little excited that my best friend was about to become my sister.
It was chaos from day one. I was pulled out of homeschool and shoved into public school, where they decided to hold me back a grade because homeschool “education” had failed me. It was humiliating, confusing, and disorienting. I didn’t understand why I was behind. I was smart I just hadn’t been given the right tools or the stability to thrive.
Public school was brutal. I was bullied constantly for my red hair. On my very first day of kindergarten, I rode the bus home only to be bombarded by middle schoolers throwing paper balls at me and chanting “fire-head.”
Later, I found out they were actually calling me “firecrotch.”
Within a few days, the whole bus had began bullying me.
I cried every single day on the way home… tears swallowed in silence while other kids laughed.
And Then… The Bomb Dropped
Just when it felt like life couldn’t get any more upside-down, my mom gave us news that stunned us all:
She was pregnant.
And she didn’t know if the baby’s father was Dominic… or my dad.
Let that sink in.
How does a child hold that kind of truth?
How does a six-year-old categorize that in her tiny, breaking heart?
The rumor was my mom had cheated with Dominic.
My mom told us my dad had cheated on her with her sister.
Dad told us my mom was drinking and popping pills.
They were both at war… with each other, with the past, with themselves and neither one of them had enough left over to protect us.
We were constantly being pulled out of school because of my mom’s paranoia. She swore my dad was going to show up and take us. Every knock at the door felt like a threat. Every moment was unstable.
My childhood was fractured.
A Few Closing Thoughts
Looking back, it’s surreal how much was expected of us. We were forced to grow up, make choices no child should ever have to make, and carry truths that weren’t ours to hold.
I hate to say that my parents’ divorce wasn’t the worst thing to happen in my childhood and certainly not my life. It was just the beginning of something bigger, that ultimately made me who I am today. I lost a lot at a young age, but boy, I gained so much from the hard times, I would not give back one second of it. The hell I went through gave me the life I have today, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Next time, I’ll share what happened when the baby arrived and how the feud over who the father really was sparked a violent chain of events that would involve the police, restraining orders, and the kind of chaos no child should ever witness.