I resign - Talbot Clarke

I want to escape from the tension of my parents. I’m so sick of feeling like I have o chose. I did chose, because it was a childish way of resigning. I was too scared and too weak to pick the fight with both of them, so I let go of one. The one I let go of was my Dad.

Who knows what really happened during their divorce. I know I’ll never hear the truth. All I know is that he went insane. He abandoned us and put all of his energy into fighting with her. If he cared about us he would have let it go.

I resign feeling obligated to my mom. She has treated me well, she really has. She did it all on her own; when he went crazy, she stayed stable. When he went bankrupt, she got a job. But I guess that’s just what she says, who knows if that is the truth. I will never know. I am tired of feeling conflicted; feeling like I’m constantly being lied to. I am skeptical of everything. I hate feeling uneasy. I hate play the role of the second parent. Filling in all the gaps that a single mother with 4 kids and a full time job. I hate playing the role of a second parent. I’m tired of driving, cooking, and doing my lazy-ass brother’s dishes so my mom doesn’t flip out when she get home cranky and stressed from a long days work. I’m tired of being my mom’s friend. I am only a child. I have my own stresses and can’t take on the burden of having to comfort her every night when she cries. I can’t be her friend. I can’t automatically agree with her when she cries after being in court all day and saying that my Dad did x,y and z. I don’t’ even know if she is telling the truth. I resign from being a non-believer. My parents’ divorce has made me cold. In the back of my head I never fully believe anyone. When she says he doesn’t pay any money is it true? I let him go because I couldn’t be stuck in the middle. I still am stuck, even though I let him go. I can’t deal with the stress of his fighting words, his psychobabble about my mom. My head is too full to hear his words too.

I was forced to become an adult at age 12, and I resign. I even feel guilty about being away at college. I feel as if I abandoned my mom when she needed me. I feel the feeling that my Dad should feel.

I resign of being caught in the middle. I resign being a part of their fight, because it isn’t my own, but I have had to fix the pieces. I resign being a tortured child of divorce. However, I can’t resign because it is life. I was born into this family, this now broken family. It is my duty to stay loyal. This is the feeling I am resigning from; the feeling of abandonment, conflict, and being torn in two directions.