Final Essay Draft

Andrea Sneed

Final: Essay 3

What is Love?

                What is love? Love is defined as a deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection and solicitude toward another person. We share a special kind of love with our parents, siblings, and family. We love our friends, or a girlfriend or boyfriend. And we are also loved by these people. People say love lasts forever. Some people disagree and say love fades, or if it does fade, it is because one never really was loved. Loving someone is different than being in love someone. Love is complicated and simple. I don’t believe in love. I love my family and my friends but I think love between couples is growing extinct. Divorce rates are growing higher and higher and these days, most people know more couples who have been divorced than couples who are still together.

                When I was eight years old and my brother was six, my parents sat us down in the living room to tell us they had some upsetting news. My mother had begun to explain that her and my dad were going to get a divorce that fall. My brother and I cried and begged them not to do it. Eventually after a few days of discussion, they decided they would wait until we had graduated from high school to file for the divorce. I can’t remember much about my life ten years ago when I was eight years old, but the things that affect us emotionally always tend to stay in our memory. Over the years I’d experience fighting more and more and as I grew older, I decided that maybe a divorce would have been better than the fighting.

When I was young I’d hear my parents fight and even though I didn’t understand a lot of things they would be talking about, I could always tell it was bad. One thing I could tell about their fighting, was that they didn’t trust each other. As I grew older, and my family fought and I heard what my parents would fight about, I became very untrustworthy of them. I got scared because I felt like I couldn’t trust my own parents. My last two years of grade school I had a lot of problems with friendships and finding out who my real friends were and who I could trust. Going into high school, I didn’t want to meet a lot of people and I definitely didn’t want a boyfriend.

                No one in our house got along. Anytime we would do things as a family, it would end in a fight. Eventually we all just minded our own business and did our own thing. The beginning of my sophomore year in high school, my parents had finally decided that the fighting had to end and they were going to file for a divorce. Once again, something stood in the way. That October my mother was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer. For the obvious reason of her being sick, the divorce was once again postponed. My mother was sick for year. Our family had grown so far apart by this point that she ended up taking care of herself. I found myself out of the house more, having my friends pick me up and take me places or staying late after school.

                That November I had my first high school relationship. Kevin had his license and usually he would take me places when I didn’t want to be home and we would hang out at his house until I had to be back home for curfew. Eventually I got to know his parents and brother and sister really well. The Kugler family was much different than my family. His parents got along extremely well and it was obvious that after 30 years of marriage they were still in love. No one ever got in fights at their house. There were small arguments but no yelling or screaming like I was used to at home. This was the first time in my life I had experienced a couple who truly still loved each other and a family who didn’t fight all the time. All my friends’ parents were still married, but none of their families were like the Kugler’s family. Until I met the Kugler’s I was convinced that there was no such thing as love that lasted forever.

Things at home got worse as my mom grew sicker and couldn’t do things around the house anymore. For a year, everything at home was chaotic and unorganized until my mom finally beat the cancer and was back to full health the next summer. My parents were fast to begin the divorce. That fall my mom was searching for a house and soon moved out and we were finally separated. At first I hated the fact that I now had two different houses 20 minutes apart. Being a girl, I wanted all of my things in one place but instead everything was scattered.

                The divorce was hard at first because my brother and I became the communication between our parents while trying to get settled into a new place. To get away from all the stress I would hang out with my friends and boyfriend a lot. Hanging out with Kevin’s family a lot always seemed to take my mind off things. As my mom got settled into her new house and I finally realized that the divorce was for the best, things started to get better. My mom got serious with a new boyfriend who I really liked and my parents both seemed a lot happier. They were finally able to get along with each other now that they were in separate houses. Although it was hard for me adjust to living in two houses I was happy that we could all get along.

                Usually when people hear the word divorce they think of it as something bad, which I agree. But I also think it can be good. My parents just didn’t work out as a couple living together. But now that they can live separately and still be good parents to their kids, they are happy. My dad and my mom’s boyfriend get along extremely well, we can still spend holidays together, we all go out to dinner together, and no one has any big fights anymore. Although divorce also has its positives, it also has its fair share of negatives. Sometimes I wish I could just have a happy family living together in one house. I hate driving between two houses and trying to spend equal time with both parents. Divorces are also expensive, especially because instead of two people paying for one house, they both have to pay for their own houses. But the biggest negative effect from my parents’ divorce, is how it has changed my views on relationships and my future.

                In the past four years of high school, I learned a lot about trust. I met new friends who I thought I could trust who turned into people I couldn’t trust. I realized that just because someone says you can trust them doesn’t necessarily mean that they are telling the truth. Now, in college, I’m convinced that you can never fully trust anyone. Seeing how miserable my parents were for years and hearing the things they fight about, I know that I never want to get married. People always tell me that I’ll change my mind, but I am pretty convinced that there is no such thing as love that lasts forever.

                Being around my boyfriend’s parents over the past three years have given me a smidge of hope. When I first met his family when I was fifteen, I was so amazed that they got along so well and were so happy together after so many years. Not being around a normal married happy couple for fifteen years has me convinced that there are only a small percent of people who can be happy in a marriage. I also don’t want to have kids. Even though it sounds foolish, I don’t think a child should have to grow up in a family that ends up separating. I have a lot of trust issues now and even though that has been caused from many different experiences, the main reason was because I felt I grew up in a house of people who lied and fought and could never be happy.

                At the beginning of this paper I talked about love. I don’t believe in love. Yes, I love my parents and my friends and know that they love me back. I know that I would do anything for them, as they would do the same. But I don’t believe that between two people, it can last forever. Even though I’ve seen couples in my life share their love forever, like my grandparents, I don’t believe in it for me. There is always someone who messes up, can’t be trusted, or falls out of love. We even see it in TV shows and movies today, people say they love someone but they cheat or lie.