Reflective Essay On Independence Day

I don’t celebrate my Independence Day on July 4th; I celebrate it on July 31st, 2015. This is the day that I told my father that I was done. I was done with seeing him and I was done dealing with the crap that he made me deal with. I was sick and tired of feeling my blood boil, my eyes getting teary, my heart pounding in my head, causing headaches, or myself leaning over the toilet, literally not being able to keep my dinner from that night down. The anxiety I felt from thinking about having to go see him was unbearable. I will never forget crying the night before. I will never forget crying the night of the visits. I will never forget the first sleepover. I will never forget the last one, either. I will never forget him yelling at me to “shut …show more content…
I will never forget the awkward car rides home after I told him I didn’t want to stay anymore. I will never forget my mom coming to pick us up, and the feeling of relief that it was time to go home. I will never forget any of those things, but the thing I will always remember the most will always be telling my father that I didn’t want to see him anymore. I asserted my independence, and I made sure he understood that. As a very sensitive person, I sometimes feel bad for the possibility that I hurt my dad’s feelings, but then I remember all of the times he hurt my feelings, and all of the times he disappointed me, and I remember that I don’t have a reason to feel bad anymore. What I did was the decision I made, and I think that I can say it is one of the best decisions I could’ve ever …show more content…
In total the divorce took almost two years, because there was a huge debate on visitation. At first, we only went to see him on Wednesdays for 3 hours and Saturdays for 8 hours. Later, the court decided that we would continue our Wednesday visits, but instead of our usual Saturday visits, they made them every other week, but from Friday night to Sunday afternoon. The courts did this even though they were told multiple times by my counselor and my mom (and notes written by me) multiple times that we didn’t want to go. This meant that we would have to start going to sleepovers. I would cry uncontrollably on Friday nights, sometimes actually causing me to throw up. My dad never did anything physically violent, but I never have felt comfortable with my dad as my caregiver. I felt like I was sleeping at a stranger’s house. I would sometimes stay up until 3 or 4 in the morning because I was so uncomfortable with the situation. One night, when I was around 12 or 13, my sister and I wanted to leave, but my dad said no. My sister, only 5 or 6 at the time, would cry, and I would cry because I felt so bad for her. I told my dad there was nothing he could do about it, and I was calling my mom. So, at around 11:30 pm, I called my mom, and told her that I wanted to go home. She asked to talk to my dad, and he said, and I quote, vulgar and all, “If you come to my fucking apartment, I’m gonna call the fucking cops.” Well, my