My parents’ divorce is a piece of my life that I want to share with you, not because I am looking for sympathy or for advice.

But because it’s an integral part of who I have become, and I think it’s necessary to understand some of the reasons why I am the way I am.

I’m choosing to share these bits of my life with you because I want you to know. I want you to understand.

We lived in the same house for 22 years together.

Their divorce was long awaited. It should’ve happened 10 years earlier. As selfish as I feel my parents had been, staying with each other until Sophia and I were adults was the most selfless act I could imagine a parent could do for their children.

Despite being a full grown adult when it happened, the feelings were still just as hard to process as they would have been had I been a child.

The divorce process began in September of 2014, was finalized in June 2016, and sometimes it still feels like I am in the middle of it.

We are still in Year 1 in terms of being a separate family. Sophia and I made the conscious decision to separate from each other.

There are 2.1 miles in between our homes.

Sometimes it feels like there is a whole world that separates us.

Living as a family of four was a struggle. It was like four tornadoes moving in four different paths of destruction. Living as a family of four was killing us slowly.

Now we live as two sets of two.

In the three years since this started, I have never once allowed myself to have a feeling about it. I’m not condoning that. I’m not saying that’s healthy. I’m not even saying that’s a good idea. In fact, I think it’s a terrible idea. But I feel things too deeply to start to pick apart that burden at such a crucial point in my life.

I’m writing this for you today not because I need to or have to, but because I want you to know that

good things can come from broken pieces of broken homes.

The relationship I have with my dad has been tested and tried and it is stronger than ever. He knows everything about me. He listens when I have to complain. He lifts the heavy groceries when I can’t.

On the opposite end of the equation, the relationship I have with my sister has a completely different dynamic than it’s ever had. This summer, we were able to drive 627 miles in one car together and we both made it out alive, with all limbs intact, and collectively, we only suffered three panic attacks.  It took us 19 years to get to that point.

My family is on a long journey of recovering our broken pieces. We have come so far and we have so far to go.

New Blogs: Reality Check With Brian and Others! – Since April, we have had two new bloggers. Kelly started contributing to our weekly blog since April and Brian has been contributing to the forum since the start of May.

Kelly has been sharing with us what life is like in college and how she deals with anxiety, depression and OCD and Brian, our newest blogger will be keeping us up-to-date with current events in his blog: Reality Check. When he’s not blogging about mental health, Brian spends his free time thinking too much, getting distracted and deliberating about how he “should” spend his free time.  When he’s actually doing something, he enjoys learning, volunteering, the arts, spending time in Nature and “being productive”.  A self-described social justice junkie, Brian first had his consciousness raised to the issue of mental illness in 2011 after seeing the musical Next to Normal.  Behavioral healthcare program coordinator by day, Brian enjoys evenings and weekends living with his partner, their two kitties and a few plants in lovely East Hampton, CT.  Last week Brian shared his first piece, which touches on the issue of addiction and its root causes: Finding a Fix.

Also, on a monthly basis, professional blogger, Amy will also be contributing to the forum; she has had a very fascinating past and she hopes to grab our attention as she reveals some of the very traumatic experiences that has had. In her own words, “I’ve had to befriend my past, embrace my experience, and express what had happened to me.”

Amy’s Blog is called The Detourist and you can read her story HERE.

The New Schedule for each blog is as follows:
Mondays: Daily Life of a College Student – Kelly
Tuesdays: Everything Music – Kevin
Thursdays: Journal Black Gay immigrant – kevin
Fridays: Reality Check – Brian
Monthly: The The Detourist- Amy

Look out for all the new posts in the weeks ahead and feel free to share your concerns and gratitude in the Discussion Forum.

“Everyone’s journey is individual. If you fall in love with a boy, you fall in love with a boy. The fact that many Jamaicans consider it a disease says more about them than it does about homosexuality.”

This is a quote by the very historic American writer and playwright, James Baldwin… In the quote, I replaced the term, ‘Americans’ with ‘Jamaicans’.
Baldwin in my opinion was first and foremost a human being BUT in his time, he was merely BLACK and GAY. The sociopolitical stigma and prejudice that encompassed the topic of color and sexuality forced him to migrate to France in the 1940s. Though still evolving, France was one of the more liberal countries at the time (and currently is).

Referencing back to the quote above, bear in mind that 20th century America represented the ‘Egypt’ of Baldwin’s lifetime and it does make you wonder what life was really like in America in the 1940s.

Still yet, we can look to Jamaican society for a firsthand experience.

On the other hand, America today, for people like myself represents the ‘Canaan’ of what France was for Baldwin in the 1940s.

A man without roots, without a country to call home. James Baldwin used his experience to unveil what it looks like beyond being BLACK,
beyond being GAY and even more, beyond being an IMMIGRANT, a line of thought that is still unfathomable to many people in our lifetime;
in this day and age.

Baldwin superseded labels – in my opinion, Baldwin was neither BLACK nor GAY, nor was he an immigrant,
he was a human being who was denied his rights.

I’ve been inspired by James Baldwin.

What does prejudice look like in America from the perspective of a French lifestyle?
What does hope look like in France from the perspective of an American lifestyle?
These are questions Baldwin may have possibly asked himself.

The following poem is by Warsaw Shire [the poet behind Beyoncé’s recent album] – she explains what she thinks of home amidst prejudice and fighting shame.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6t78c_5aR4