I make my parents seem very selfish in the following piece. They aren't - they just don't see me very often and understandably want to whenever I am in my home town. Am not being selfish. I promise.
A seasonal addition to this node...
My parents finally called it quits when I was eighteen. Utterly bizarre childhoods, once the thing that brought them together, their common bond, proved too much for them as they reached their mid-forties.
They didn't argue over the kids, they argued over the house - it was taken as read that we would stay in the family home. Dad won - didn't bother me, after all, mum was only two miles down the road and I could see her whenever I wanted, and at least I could sleep the whole night through now, without being woken by my sister crawling into my bed at three in the morning to the accompaniment of crashing plates and yelling. Everyday there would be a small tug inside with each new realisation, that I had to pick up the phone to talk to my mum, instead of yelling down the stairs, that I couldn't borrow her clothes because they were in binliners on the floor of a new flat two miles away, that my main guardian was my dad, a man with no knowledge of period pains, the need for moisturising scrub instead of soap, and that ten pounds for new underwear just wasn't enough.
But as the months got by, we all got used to it - neither of us kids wanted to see our parents unhappy after all, and unhappy is what they were, for three years...they had tried over and above the call of duty, we felt.
They made that choice, and although it was undoubtedly heartbreakingly difficult for them, it brought happiness. And it was only one choice.
That one choice has made my life full of them.
On special occasions, who do I see first, therefore for longer? Does it mean I love them more if I choose to see them and not the other? If I come home, technically my father's house, I must see my mother too. Even if I've only come home for a friend's birthday and will be there for two days, the balance must be kept.
My twenty-first birthday was spent with neither because of the stress - they both wanted the coveted position of me as the birthday dinner guest at their house. I would have loved, dearly loved, to have seen them both, but it just couldn't happen.
And now...here comes Christmas. For the last two years it has been home for the actual big day, and then mum's flat for Boxing Day. Even that choice was horrible. While I was at home, eating my turkey, opening my presents, being a family, I knew my mum was on her own. Horrible.
Again, understandably, my parents want to see my sister and I for most of the day, as we, the kids, also understandably want to see SO's and friends in the evenings. So there is no chance to see them both on Christmas Day - neither of the parents want that anyway.
This year, my mum wants us for Christmas Day. I want to go. I don't want her to be on her own three years in a row. But I don't want my dad to be on his own.
That is the worst thing about divorce. The choices involved. The choice to leave your partner, the choice to leave your kids, the choice to start seeing someone else that your children hate (and who hates your children), choice, choice, choice.
Who do I choose?