Never did I ever think I would have divorced parents. If there was one thing I thought I never had to worry about, it was my parents being together. I never knew imagined the word “divorce” having such a strong presence in my life.

I have friends who were so young when their parents got divorced that they have no memories of them being one parental unit. Sometimes I wish this were my case because I made it through my childhood, teen years, and into adulthood before my parents made the split. Just a few years shy of two decades of being raised on what their demonstration of love was, only for it to end, and leave me wondering what love truly is. Having parents get a divorce at any age is hard, but your age when it happens determines why it is hard.

Divorce changed my opinions about love in so many ways. The word divorce slapped whatever thoughts and opinions I had about love right out of me. The train named divorce has hit me, and most loving bones in my body have been shattered. The monster named divorce has made its way out from out of my bed, and scared my ideas of what love is out of me. The boat named divorce has docked, and has brought a dark storm over the sea with it.

Divorce has changed my overall belief in love. I started to wonder if people who have been together for years even still have the same love for each other as they once did, or if their love has just turned into a routine that they would rather not break. I began to wonder if people are together for all the right reasons, and then I began to wonder what exactly those right reasons are considered to be.

Divorce has also led me to question time and time again the trust that is suppose to come with love. Is it possible to love someone you don’t trust? Can you trust someone you don’t love? Is it even possible to trust someone to the point that the thought of giving them your all doesn’t keep you up at night? Divorce made me wonder is it possible to spend an entire lifetime with someone and not have this notion of trust questioned at all.

Divorce made me wonder what exactly it feels like to love, or to be in love. On T.V. and in movies I’ve heard that being in love is loving someone so much it hurts. But can you be so in love with a person and not feel pain at all? Is it possible to feel the same thing each time you look into a person’s eyes? What exactly is it that crosses you over the invisible line of loving someone, to being in love with them?

Even though divorce changed my opinions about love in some negative ways, it also changed my opinion in some positive ways.

Divorce is a very ugly and hurtful way of proving that some people just aren’t meant to be, and others are. Divorce made me realize that you can’t force love, because at some point it will blow up, and it will not be pretty, and it will hurt many people. It changed my opinion on love in the way that now I don’t look at love as something that everyone is capable of feeling for any given person. I have been reassured that if a love is difficult and trying, then it is simply not meant to be, and there is a love out there for you that will come as easy as riding a bike.

Divorce changed the way I cherish and appreciate people, in a good way. I now realize that those in your life need to know that you are thankful for their presence, and that you do not take them for granted. You need to say ‘thank you’ for everything that they do, whether it is big or small. And most importantly, it is vital to give back the love that you receive.

In the end, the word ‘divorce’ completely changed the way I look at the word ‘love’.