My family was broken apart when I was twelve years old. It was inevitable; my parents had been fighting each other my entire life, and nothing was going to change that. After dealing with each other for twenty years, they were finally fed up with it. My mom divorced my dad and moved across the country. My siblings and I had to stick together and adapt. Learn. The rest is history. I was able to learn from this experience. I learned that change can be good, that you can choose your family, and that true love only exists for those who work for it.
I told my parents multiple times over the years that they needed to change. I knew that they needed to get away from each other and get a divorce, ever since I was seven years old. Instead of changing anything, they made empty promises to each other and to my siblings and I. My family lived in the same house my
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My blood relatives, my parents, they did not have to be considered family. I could always pick my family, pick the people who care about and respected me. I chose my friends and their families, the people who were excited to see me and had genuine interests in my hobbies. My neighbor down the street, my best friend’s family, the internet friends who I have never seen in person, they all were family to me, and no one could tell me otherwise. These people who had no blood relation to me treated me with more respect than my “actual” family. They supported me. Nothing felt better than hearing people tell me they love me, without being family. It filled me with joy to tell others how much I loved them without feeling required to say it, like I did with the family in my house. These people took actual interest in me. I felt confident in myself that if my parents could stop calling each other family, then I could stop considering them as family. My parents stopped loving each other, proving to me how fictitious true love