Early.

I grew up in a small house with my mom, dad, and two older sisters. We were a family of average, maybe even slightly lower than average income. I can't remember any of my childhood before my parents' divorce at age 7. I do remember though, I was a happy child. After the divorce, not so much. I was forced to grow up, right there, in my bathroom as my mother helped me out of the bath tub, and said to me, words I to this day wish I would have never heard. "Brandon, I have something to tell you. Your dad is moving out. He's not gonna live here, anymore." I collapsed and wept as I fell apart for the first time in my life.

Fortunately, my parents never fought in front of me, and I'm grateful for it. That was a very awkward year for me, because I depended on both of my parents. Any young child would, of course, but I wasn't any child. I fed off of they're energy. I was very observant as a kid, and looking back now I can't believe how intelligent I was. I was always considered more mature for my age than other kids I had ever been around. I used to analyze everything in any way that I could, but being only a child, I couldn't pick up on any problems an adult relationship might face. Mommy and daddy would always be together, I thought.

Time went on, and I don't remember a lot after that until my dad went to prison for drinking and driving. That destroyed me. I went to visit him with my grandmother, and having not having grasped the actual concept that my dad had done something wrong, and was incarcerated had an effect on me. We drove up, in my grandmother's old white Chevy Trailblazer, parked, and went inside this room. There were booths with phones on each side, separated by thick glass. We walked towards the opposite side of the room, signed in or something, I'm assuming, and waited. "There he is!" she had said, as I saw my father's face in a small window on the only door on that side of the glass wall. There was a red light above it. I began to feel excited, because I'd be seeing my father who I hadn't seen in a very long time. There were a group of people talking to their loved ones, or whomever they had come to see before us. The inmates had gotten up and walked through the door, and their visitors exited the room.

My grandmother sat down on the cold grey stool, and she put me in her lap. The red light came on, and the door opened as inmates started to pour out of it. Out came my father, and I experienced a rush of emotions that overwhelmed me. Time felt as if it began to slow, because as my father picked up the phone on his side, I picked up the phone on mine. I began to utter the word "Hi" but I instantly burst into tears and fell apart for the second time in my life. I watched him cry as my grandmother took the phone and began talking to him. She had seemed to be unaffected. It was casual conversation for the most part. I knew now that my father wasn't just not at home, but locked away in a jail. A guard had let everyone know that the visiting time had expired, and my father's eyes and mine met. I wept, as I watched him walked towards the door he had come out of. My grandmother pulled me away, and we exited the building and she led me to her car, buckled me in, and drove me back home.

With the absence of my father in my life at the time, I became a very dark, reserved, and depressed child. I did not speak. I did not eat unless forced by my mother to do so. I simply did not want anything to do with any aspect of life except to have my mother and father reunite and make everything go back to normal. I later learned that my mother filed for the divorce while my father was in jail. He then was obligated to pay child support. Since he was in jail, he couldn't. And the debt began to grow.

My uncle came to the rescue. He had begun picking me up on the weekends as my father used to, and basically was my father figure for about a year. I then became close to my cousin, for he later experience the very same fate as I did.

My dad came back, and I had adjusted to separate parents, houses, and holidays. I don't go for the whole pity, "feel bad for me" act, but I grew up as a troubled child, and although I'm grateful, I'm still trying to figure myself out.