The first is far less dramatic and drawn out (sort of) because it only really involved me. I'm in my last year of my undergrad, and I'm happy. But it wasn't always that way. I started off in the School of the Arts as a Sculpture major. It was a huge accomplishment for me to get into that program (it's the best public Sculpture program in the nation), and I worked my ass off to get there. First year into the program was great (my first instructor was my advisor, and we just have really similar art-making processes and interests). Then it all went downhill... I wouldn't say "quickly" but definitely at an ever-increasing pace. I found that almost everyone that was considered a "professor" in the Sculpture department was up on their high horse. Their opinions were the only ones that mattered, and if you didn't agree then fuck you. (art-making and criticism is a completely subjective thing, and, in reality, a terrible thing to try to "grade" people on when you think your opinion is the only valid one.) I was really just feeling like the way I made art wasn't seen as valid (except in the Crafts department, to which I am still forever grateful for letting me do what I wanted to do). I was realizing that I was spending thousands on something I now hated.

So it all came to a head last semester when I registered for a class with this guy who was the epitome of this attitude (I'm *this* close to telling you his name because I absolutely HATE this person, but I won't...) He was a shit to me and a lot of other people (specifically, the women in the class), and it all came down to a shouting match in the middle of the studio area where he pissed me off for the last time and I laid into him for being an asshole and blatantly rude to me and others (because we wouldn't change our plans for projects to suit his opinions). I gathered my shit, walked out of that studio, and never went back. I dropped his class the next day. Switched my major the same semester to Interdisciplinary Studies (AKA make your own major out of two minors) after some encouragement from my fiancee and my (Sculpture) advisor.

I'm much happier now, since I get to study something that's more interesting to me (Religious Studies), but didn't have to throw away all my credits in Sculpture. And I'm still graduating in the Spring. But it's still difficult for me to think back on those first few years that now feel like a waste. Art will never be the same for me, and it will probably take a long time before I can even make something again. It's sad, but it's good, I suppose...


The second, and by far largest, issue I've had to work through is the infidelity of my father and divorce of my parents. Basically, my dad was living a double life. He had a mistress in VA Beach that he would go and stay with/buy things when he was supposed to be on "business trips" (he was a traveling consultant for different businesses across the country, so it didn't seem suspicious at the time).

The drama started when my father announced that he was leaving (completely blindsiding my mom, who had no idea what was going on because he NEVER TALKED TO HER). He moved into his cousin's house in the city, and I would take my younger sister over there to visit him and sometimes stay the weekend. He basically told my mom it was all her fault, that she had been a terrible wife from the beginning, blah blah.

Then she found the credit card bill. Flowers were purchased weekly with the card, and they certainly didn't go to her. She called the shop, pretending to be my dad's secretary to inquire about the flowers, and found out exactly who they were going to.

She didn't tell my sister and I about it until several months later when she got a hold of the cell phone records and found out he had been with this bitch since January. He had spent his 50th birthday with her, Valentine's Day with her, about every other weekend is what it worked out to. She had found other things as well. Notes from the woman, other purchases with the credit card. My father filed for divorce (my mom made him do it because he left her with absolutely no money to do so). It was a long and nasty battle for a property settlement, and my mother decided not to go after him for adultery (no real point).

My dad refused for an entire year to admit that he was with another woman. He claimed she was a "good friend" and all this bullshit that everyone knew was a lie. (Unbeknownst to him, his cousin that he was staying with is still good friends with my mom, and they talked all the time. He probably should have kept his mouth closed about how that bitch was his soul mate.)

I didn't speak to him for an entire year. I was a full-time freshman/sophomore in college at the time, and he punished me for not talking to him by dumping several huge expenses on me during the course of a year, expenses that he knew I wasn't prepared to take on yet. He thoroughly fucked me over. I spent all my savings that year trying to pay for things, even though I had a fairly well-paying job. I'm not sure if I'll ever really forgive him for that.

Eventually he sort-of admitted to his affair. He still, to this day, never thought he did anything wrong. Mom had "wronged" him in various, made-up ways, and that gave him the right to destroy a family. (He also destroyed all ties with his own family. Most of them will not speak to him.) He's a completely different person than the father I knew. Some of us (now) joke that it's like he died and someone took up his identity and is pretending to be him.

He married the bitch, by the way.

I see him occasionally now. A couple times a month usually. I will never see his wife, and if I do, it is not going to be pretty. He's still an asshole to my mom, and I don't know if I'll ever really forgive him for that either. He financially and emotionally devastated all of us. That's not a combination people get over easily.