Being in one setting for 13 years then everything changing by a snap of a finger can be devastating for any teenager, let alone one during a pandemic.

In the summer of 2019, my mother made the decision to divorce my father. At that moment, I didn’t have anything to say to them, I was speechless.

When you’re the oldest of three kids, you’re generally the sibling that they look up to for everything, Being that young and expecting to have a three and six-year-old know that our family was getting ready to be torn apart by a decision that would be permanent for the rest of our lives.

Skip to December, it was my freshman year and the house was packed up ready to sell.  The moment I saw a for sale sign in my yard, my mind clicked and I knew our family was splitting right in front of my very eyes.

When my house sold, I broke down into tears. My childhood house was gone, the house that my siblings came home from the hospital to wasn’t ours anymore. Along with the house selling came two new places to live for my siblings and I and two new settings to adapt to.

At my dad’s house, I filled in the role of cleaning, cooking, taking care of my siblings while I was still handling my school work and keeping grades up. At my mom’s place, it was a completely different experience altogether. I felt that I could never do right in her eyes, I was always in trouble and stressed about school and our personal relationship.

I was only 14, trying to be a great model for my siblings, maintain strong grades and figure out how to piece my life back together.

I took a step back and realized that I need to change my thoughts about life and how I felt with everything going on around me.

For those teens dealing with divorce, my best advice that I could give would be to just try and push through it and get past the hard times to only then get to the better ones.