The only good human is a dead one.

Over dinner, they argued.

And I've seen them argue countless times. Someone says something, someone else takes it the wrong way. Voices are raised, they shout. I pull out a book and read.
"Read."

I stare at the bottom of the page and I listen to them scream. They tell each other that they never listen, they don't care, and that they regret their marriage. I listen and wonder if I will ever be there, yelling at my partner over spicy vegetable fried rice, threatening the other while cold pasta lies congealing on the table. They have scared me into oblivion; until I myself have decided at my young age I will never have children, for fear I will have to show them this side of me.

So I spoke to the one person who I thought would listen, sympathise, maybe help me get through it. I will be changing her name, because I wish to conceal her personality. I went to my best friend, Elizabeth. Her parents are divorced. I thought I could ask her about how to get out of the terrible hole I had fallen into.

She spoke to me like a five year old, like nothing more than a wind in the trees, foolish, immature, irresponsible, not worthy of her time. I couldn't believe the way she said, "Everyone's parents fight. They'll get over it."

And I would get the same response from a handful of others I consulted. They'll get over it like the time I did not see my father for three days when he left after an argument and to this day we don't know were he was. Or when my father forgot to answer his phone one day and mother wouldn't take his calls or answer his texts for many more. They hold grudges. Humans hold grudges. We can't help our humanly natures sometimes. Because that would be inhumane.

Sometimes my mother and I will make fun of my father for the words he says, the quirky actions he repeats. And in turn I find my father relaying endlessly to me the faults of my mother's actions, reciting to me how she "didn't think about anyone but herself" or "assumed without checking."

A wise man I had the privilege of knowing personally once said, "It is as if you do not live divorced, only rot. You were childish when you married. You were still growing."
So I wonder, can you live again after ending of marriage? And when you do remarry, do you continue to rot?

Everytime I think of this quote the ultimate question I have the horrible pleasure of answering is, when do you stop growing, and start living?