Scattered Black and Whites.

My father left during my second year of college. Looking back, I can't say that I was surprised or even that there was a noteable difference. He was never there anyway.

The two year instance that was spent with my mother afterwards bounces around my memories as a 750 day emotional caterwaul. Somethings can't be helped. I was twenty-one, when I finally left my mother.

On agreeable days I bump into what seems to resemble my younger sister. Void of sympathy, terribly vain and demanding and completely naive to the properly functioning society that revolves around her. I can't be arsed to pay attention to her anymore. Instead I remain ever-so jealous of how luxuriously her existence seems to fit.

Now I sit with my boyfriend's family around their dinner table and marvel at the simplicty of their love. It echoes in their gentle teasing and the weekly crosswords left half-finished on the coffee table.

It is so hard to not cry. Crying over a crossword. How silly.

There are times where I feel homeless and lost. I do not come back to my beginning and I do not shelter in the warmth of a loving family. I wonder what means more to me? One person to share and love an inspiring future with, or roots from a family that barely resembles anything more than a burntout book of matches.

I am greatful that I have found something in someone that bestows a love on me that calms my emotional family situation. I am in love with a man who has done more for me in a year than my family has done for me in a lifetime.

Sometimes I wonder if I've found the one I will marry and am constantly scolding myself for creating a chance to live through an emotional family divorce as a wife and not as a child.

Of course now I know that a broken heart barely inflicts the same pain as a broken family.