Ponyboy's Profile

to the heart of the matter...

My parents announced their separation in November of 1998 after nearly 20 years of marriage.  I was nineteen years old at the time, and still living at home and going to college.  I seemed to have been living under a rock as I recall it was a complete and utter shock to me at the time.  I later found out that my sister had known the divorce was coming for months ahead of time.  The real kick in the teeth was that the very man who I sought solace in (a pastor) was the same man my mother was leaving my father for.  God's honest truth.  Well, without going into any more of the gory details, life as I knew it seemingly unravelled within the span of a few days.

Cut to 12 years later, and I find that I still regularly have to fend off the old ghosts from that time.  The wound never fully healed... And every now and again, that overwhelming weight of helplessness that I felt then bears down on me.  It's the classic breakup situation; One person wants to make things right, and the other simply doesn't.  It wasn't just a divorce between my parents... It was a slow divorce between all of us.

I wish I could say the divorce made us all better people, or that it made our lives better.  But, since I can't say that with certainty... All I can say is that it brought some of us closer together along with driving a wedge between some of us.  It's also shaped part of what we are (and by we, I mean my immediate family) and who we've become.

This particular song always hits me to the right to the core... It just has that power.  I think anyone can relate to these lyrics whether it's love or friendship lost... As for me... while I know Henley is right, I find myself still struggling all this time later to take his advice... "But I think it's about forgiveness... even if, even if... you don't love me anymore..."