Origins of the Girl

It is difficult to decide how much information is pertinent. Also, I have to keep in mind who may view this and don’t want to completely alienate myself from certain people.

In order to understand who I am, you need to know where I am coming from.

My parents divorced when I was ten. I have to give them credit though. They tried to stay together. They are probably the only couple who have married and divorced each other four times. But it’s not easy watching two people break up and make up so many times.

It messes with your perception of relationships and makes you want to keep it from happening to you. I stayed in a relationship for longer than was healthy because I didn’t want to be wrong about love and every relationship after became a second guessing game. To the point I would try everything to destroy it before it began.

I have one sister who is eight years older than I. I grew up under her shadow. To hear my family talk, she was perfect. She never got in trouble, got straight As, had one steady boyfriend through high school. I strove to be like her; because part of me felt she was more loved than I was.

It turns out I was only half wrong. My sis wasn’t perfect. I found out about her college life and wished I had known a lot sooner. I was striving to be a fabrication.

As to her being more loved, well my mom recently admitted she felt closer to my sis than to me. I never saw the correspondence of the divorce and Sis leaving for college until Mom told me. She went through empty nest syndrome with one chick still in the nest.

My dad raised me from ten on. I have a wonderful father who gave me what I needed. It is a good thing that I never bought into fads and prep clothes; otherwise, I’d be a much different person. The biggest problem was he was broken after the divorce. He had finally come to love Mom wholly and she was done. I had to be the good girl. I didn’t want to make things worse.

What followed was years trying to become perfect. I wanted perfection so badly. I only realized within the last year or so that this is impossible. Now I want to be genuine. This may actually be attainable.

But even more important than figuring out that perfection is an unreal desire is I have come to terms with the fact that everyone (triple underscore, bold face, italics) EVERYONE is broken. And more important than that little revelation: It is O K AY! It’s what makes us human. It’s time to realize it and come forward in our crumbling masses and maybe find a semblance of wholeness and healing.

~Andrea Leigh