Hi everyone
I am really pleased to be writing this blog, to try and tell you about some of my memories and experiences of being brought up in a single parent household. I hope to try and tell you about all the positives because, even though there were many negatives and difficult times, I feel that there have been many many positive aspects to my parents’ divorce from a personal point of view. I am sure that many of you reading will be going through all this at the moment, and so I hope my blogs will provide a little reassurance for you.
I wasn’t sure where to start with my first post, as there are so many things I want to write about, but a logical place is the beginning – my parents’ split. I am conscious that this first blog may be a little disheartening given that I have been telling you about how positive my blogs will be, but I promise there are lots of positives to come! To fully appreciate the positives, I think you need to hear about the negatives first. So, here we go………….
When I was eleven, my parents sat me, my brother and my sister down on Boxing Day, with a huge pile of Quality Streets (probably to pacify us), and told us that they were separating. I remember sitting on Dad’s lap and feeling scared, as Mummy told us we were moving to a new house but that Daddy wasn’t coming. I didn’t really understand why Daddy wasn’t coming, but the whole thing was a whirlwind, and after the initial worry, the three of us thought it was a big adventure. We packed all of our things in big cardboard boxes. I can remember being excited to find a necklace Mum had given to me. Mum was helping me pack up my bedroom and she said “Don’t show that to Daddy”. I asked why and she said “He gave it to me. It will upset him if he sees it”.
We went to see the new house on the day they told us. They kept reminding me how close it was to Dad’s house (he would stay in the family home) but at eleven years old, eight miles was a long way, and I still couldn’t understand why he couldn’t come too.
Within a weekend we had packed up our stuff in boxes and moved eight miles away from the big house we had lived in since I was three, and eight miles away from Dad.
This was the beginning of a very different life for us all and I hope to be able to tell you about it in my future posts.
