Home serves to remind me of a family I'll never actually be apart of, relationships with family and friends that are superficial at best, and a life that really isn't mine anymore.

The life that my father and brother and I had together worked for us. It was hard. And there were some days when I just didn't want to get out of bed in the morning because it was too painful to deal with how much everything had changed. Honestly, there are still days like that and I'm only home at most three months out of a year. But, we made it work, what we had.

And now, my father has a new life, with a new wife and new kids; he has a new family. And, truth be told, there is no way to blend the old family with the new. There is no way to fit my brother and I into their new life together. I accepted that fact a long time ago. I accepted the idea that my relationship with my father would never be the same. In some ways, its better than it ever had been. But in more ways, we're like strangers.

There is a quote, by some ignorant imbecile, that says "Your reality is what you make it". To this thought process and mentality, I say screw you. You can not change reality. Its not possible. I've been trying for almost seven years to change my reality into something I could control, into something that I could handle and deal with. I failed at that. The reality of my relationship with my father is devastating, but there isn't much I can do about it at this point. It is what it is. I'm tired of fighting to make it work.

Imagine a thirteen year old girl trying to hold her family together, or what was left of it. She had to grow up because of it, grow up faster than a thirteen year old should have to in my opinion. This year marks the 6 year anniversary of when my parents sat me down and told me Dad was moving out and I don't know why I'm having such a hard time with all of this right now.

I haven't had a bad life. I have two parents who love me and support me and just want what's best for me. They provided me with every opportunity a kid should have- a home, food to eat, a good education, opportunities to succeed. I didn't grow up in awful foster care situations and I'm not starving in a third world country. For all intents and purposes, my life's been perfect compared to others. I don't take any of that for granted. Neither one of my parents are bad people. They made their mistakes, but they're human and that happens.

But I'm so angry with them. An all consuming anger that just makes me want to scream and cry and just yell. I'm angry because of how things are now and how things used to be and the way things will be for the rest of our lives.

And I'm scared. I'm scared that I'm going to end up like them- alone and angry at the world. I'm scared that because of what I went through with them when their marriage fell apart that I won't ever be able to make a relationship actually successful. I am terrified of ending up alone.

I'm working on my relationship with God and he is patiently working with me too as I struggle to figure out who I am in this world. I know I am never really alone because of him being present in my life. But when it comes to relationships and the future and my reality, I'm terrified.

I miss my father. I miss how things used to be. Things were never great, but they never were awful until the very end. I miss the days when I wasn't so emotionally stunted that I could actually let someone see who I really was. I can't do that anymore. I don't know how. I miss that little girl in the pictures with the crazy brown curls and crooked teeth who didn't have a care in the world- I'm jealous of how easy her life used to be.

I disassociate from things that might make me emotional. My mother and brother star arguing so I start staring at the painting on the wall in front of me, trying to ignore them at the dinner table. My father starts talking about how his relationship with his new wife isn't what he wants it to be and I start thinking about all the different books I could read to get ahead in my classes. Disassociating makes it easier to deal with. I started doing it when I was thirteen and I'm still doing it now. My friends give me hell for me, too. "Meagan, why don't you ever show emotion about anything?" "Meagan, this would upset anyone else, why not you?" "Meagan, why aren't you excited about this?" I can't do it anymore though. I have to stop. I'm turning into this unfeeling, emotionless, cold hearted monster who wants to get as far away from Norcross as humanly possible. And I hate that. That's not who I am. Not at all.

I'm having a really hard time with this. And I don't know what to do. Its all hit me like a ton of bricks in the face and I can't sleep and I just want to forget all of this. I don't know what to do.