Broken

My parents are getting divorced. After 30 years of marriage, five daughters, four grandkids, three cats, four puppies, three surgeries, eight residences, more than a dozen jobs, and a half decade of trying to get it together, they are splitting up.

Both are shattered. Both erupt in tears at the drop of a hat. Both have no idea how to be alone or how to construct a life that doesn't have the other at its center. But as a couple they are doing each other more harm than good.

My heart hurts for them, for my family, for the babies who now know two generations of divorce and they're not even 10 years old. But the ache between them is unbearable, and as I've told them both, if they cling to something so infected out of nostalgia, it will kill them. Neither of them are perfect, neither of them are free of blame for the state of their union, neither of them are bad people, and both of them will move on. Their new existence won't come close to being what their old one was at its peak, but it will be better than what it became. There are still good times to be had, and the hate and betrayal they feel now will eventually give way to something a little gentler. They will heal.

There really aren't a good set of words that describe the complicated feelings I have about this, but the other day Shannon texted me this video with the caption "our family Christmas theme song ;)" and it granted me an exhale that I'd been needing for a while. And that was the best Christmas gift I got this year.