Postscript: Divorce Post

Postscript to Yesterday
I've been thinking about what I wrote yesterday and asking myself questions - was what I wrote too harsh? Was it too easy? Who did I let off the hook? Was the post a facile rendering of events that so profoundly altered my life, or was it merely another stanza in a chorus of "poor me" sung to the tune of "but I had divorced parents"? (And since so many other children have sung the same song, does my version become nothing but a plaintive tune telling everyone how I was one of the first, and so felt all of it the most?)

I don't think what I wrote was too harsh - on the contrary, I could have written much more about the privations, embarassments and indignities I experienced.

To what end? So everyone can know the depth of my chagrin? So everyone can know how very long I was content to identify myself as a child of divorce?

I didn't go into great detail about how much I suffered (and I did, this much I tell you is true) as a child of divorced parents. Is the suffering I endured more or less than that meted out to any or every child of divorce?

While my experience was unique in the fact that it did seem to happen at the time to only to me and my siblings, and rarely to my contemporaries, than yes, my suffering was unique in its place. I learned some rock hard truths when I was young- probably too young.

Knowing those truths didn't always save me from making my own mistakes when the time came. Those mistakes I had to make all on my own.