With the four years of my High School career soon coming to an end, I’ve realized High School tends to be about the façade. The clothes representing the newest brands. The language and actions used to replicate the most popular celebrities and athletes at the time. People try to emulate a certain life; a life that is considered “perfect” or even just “normal”, which may be good enough. Based on my own personal experiences, I realized people and situations are not always as they appear, and most times peers don’t know what’s going on with a family behind closed doors. Behind the façade. One of the most significant experiences in my life was the divorce of my parents and how it has shaped who I am today, and who I will become.

My home life has never been a particularly conventional one. My parents were married at age twenty four, had my sister Megan the same year, and divorced for the first time five years later. After remarrying another five years after that, I was born out of a second marriage and grew up in a household I considered stable and normal at the time, but never realized how quickly it could fall off the tracks. In terms of material items, I never wanted for a thing. I had everything a child could ask for, but now I realize it was a way to mask the emotional and financial struggles my parents had been facing for years.

My father worked for the City of Quincy in a number of different departments as a Laborer. I always saw the department hopping as a means for promotion, but eventually learned that due to consistent arguments with bosses, and pride overtaking the need to support his family, he was constantly being moved to different departments as being fired from the City is nearly impossible. I can remember him telling me to work hard in school so I wouldn’t follow in his footsteps as a Laborer at his age, and sacrifice good money and retirement