Life isn't fair

My parents are splitting up.

It's wierd. I don't quite know what to think yet.

They've been married for thirty-three years. And now this. They met with the therapist and the mediator today. They said goodbye to each other. Probably until my brother's wedding in May.

Wierd.

When you get married, you never expect this to happen. As a child growing up with everyone telling you how in love your parents seems and how lucky you are, you never expect this to happen.

Is this some sort of strange and cruel mid-life crisis? What is going on? Is is it some sort of further test in the strength of my belief that there can be happy endings? It's not about me.

I think about my long ago post that my brother asked me to write about what I want in someone I will share my life with (The Assignment, Oct 2006, I think). And I think about the Wedding Singer.

When I first saw that movie, I think I was in the theater with my brothers one of the times they came to visit me in Tacoma when I was in college up there. When he sang the song at the end, "I wanna grow old with you," I was sobbing. At "Wedding Singer." I know. I know. It's ridiculous. It's a goofball cheesy movie, predictable to the n'th degree and there I was crying into the already soggy popcorn.

I guess it struck a cord then. And it does now.

I thought my parents would grow old together. It seemed like the plan. Investments in the property. Joint retirement. Three kids, for heaven's sakes.

And now I wonder if they regret ever being together. If the three of us were the reason they stayed together all those years. If we allowed them to bury what was going on under the surface. I try not to feel responsible for it.

I'm not in charge. I'm not in charge of them. I'm only in charge of me. I have to keep telling myself that.

I had my mid year evaluation with my program director yesterday and got mostly really really positive feedback, except from the f*&%face of a resident I had in the CCU who said I will have trouble managing a team and that I was "apathetic."

Anyway, my super sweet and supportive program director was telling me that his eval was totally off base and that I shouldn't put too much stock in it, but I woke up thinking about it this morning. "When all is said and done, you'll be rid of him and he'll still be an asshole," said a friend. Yeah. But still. It's hard to hear when you feel like everything is hard and you are already sort of questioning your skill level every day.

The eval made me think of my parents because my program director was asking what went on that month that made it so far from the rest of my other evaluations. Did I have anything personal going on? "Nothing big," I said, "Well, sort of, I guess. My parents are getting a divorce." I had been trying to put it out of my head mostly. It's hard to think about. I'm mostly angry with my dad but sometimes very sad, too. It's too nebulous to pin down.

For the first time in her office, though, I was close to crying. "That's a big deal," she said. And I realized that it was. No matter how much I am not in charge of what happens it affects me. How is that fair? I know, life isn't fair.