coming of age rough draft

           " Kids, we need to talk " She said while me and my brother looked very curious.
" Are we in trouble again?" My brother asked.
 Mom shooked her head, we were relieved and waited for her to speak again.
 "Mommy and daddy aren't going to be as close as we were before, we're going to get a divorce " she  said while reaching for the tissues because her eyes were watering. With me being at the age of 7 and my brother being the age of 9 we truly did not know what was going on and were confused. Throughout the days, months and years things changed. The decision they made not only changed their life forever, but ours as well.
        I now lived in two different houses with two different beds, different clothes and different rules.   We no longer opened presents together on Christmas mornings, watched fireworks together on New Year's Eve and sat on a dinner table as a family to talk about how all our days went. The people I loved most were never in the same room together and the only time they talked was when they were arguing. 
     Rather then seeing my mom and dad everyday it went from seeing my dad on weekends and seeing my mom on the weekdays. I could tell my dad had a really hard time getting used to being independent. His laundry basket were always filled until they started to smell and the only time our new house looked decent was when he hired a maid to clean up after ourselves. He worked extra hours and only came home to tuck me and my brother into bed. On the other hand, my mom continued to cook dinner for us every night, washed all our clothes , cleaned up after everyone and tried to make everything seem like how they were before. She was always sad and faked smiles infront of me and my brother to pretend like everything was okay, but we knew nothing was and will never be the way they were before.
           I blamed the separation of my parents on myself by thinking that if I got all A's , were a better person and asked for less, they might still be together. No matter how much my parents gave me the basic talk of  how the divorce has nothing to do with me and my brother and how weve been and are amazing kids, I still didn't believe them.
        A few years down the road, when I was 12 and my brother was 14 became more of an emotional phase for me. My father met my soon-to-be stepmom, Sheree. It seemed weird for me at first and I didn't like it , seeing my dad with another women besides my mom and basically having another mother. She was originally born from Maui so my dad booked a trip for me and my brother to meet her family. They were very welcoming and even though they knew that we weren't related they instantly made me and my brother feel like we were apart of the family. They taught me new traditions that I never knew before and I got to sit with new family at the dinner table. My mom also remarried and and became just as happy as my dad were . Things eventually started to settle down and it felt great seeing my parents happy again.
        This taught me how to become an independent person, you don't always have to depend on someone else in order to survive. I learned how life does not always go as planned by seeing my parents begin to not see eachother in the same way they did when they first met. I was able to forgive my parents because I had a better understanding about what they were going through. I somewhat still feel in my heart that it was my fault, but I eventually learned as time moved on that I wasn't to blame. Life was becoming easier as I grew up and I learned not to judge the twists and turns that happened in my life. Being raised by divorced parents had made me a stronger person than I thought I was.