When I was in eighth grade, back when mastadons roamed the earth, our class was going to go away on a field trip. Far away, like get on an airplane and go. This was, of course, a big deal because up to that point I had been on an airplane only a couple of times in my life.The night before we were to leave, it was time to pack, and my mom had sent my dad up into the attic to fetch the suitcase I was to use. Several times. They were bickering about which one would be better, which turned to arguing. I don’t remember what the argument was even about, maybe size, or maybe one had more pockets, or locked, or something.

Then my dad insisted that I pick which suitcase I wanted to take. I froze. Choosing one meant picking my mom or my dad. That was clear to me. “I don’t care,” said the thirteen year old me.

Dad: “Do you want us to get a goddamn divorce!?”

26 years later I can still hear these words, like it was yesterday. I couldn’t reply, not coherently. In my head I was screaming “no, no, no, god no, why on earth would I want that? Why would anyone want that? Can’t you see I just don’t want you to fight? over a fucking suitcase?” I finally picked one, I think, or maybe they did, and clothes were packed and I went on the trip and we never talked about it again.

But in my mind, in my heart, I was somehow convinced that I had somehow obtained a mystical power, the power to tear my parents apart. I can’t say for sure that this is why I rebelled in high school (kids do that, ya know, lotsa kids). But the incident was there, just under the surface, in countless other arguments we had over the next five years or so. All because I didn’t want to pick a suitcase, all because I didn’t want to seem like I was picking sides. And I still didn’t want them to get a divorce.

Unfortunately, I still have that paralyzing problem, of wanting to please too many people, of not wanting to seem too opinionated, of not wanting to choose if it means hurting someone’s feelings. Of knowing that what I want or don’t want might somehow magically screw up somebody else. Logic has nothing to do with it; I can’t let go of the terror I felt when my dad was screaming at me about the suitcase.