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My mum's car disappeared down the gravel driveway and, just like that, my parents' marriage went with it.

It's an odd feeling, having your parents separate as an adult. I didn't get cocooned in love: no two Christmases, no new Barbie bed at Dad's, not even a consolation ice cream.

And why should I? As adults, we're conditioned to believe that these sorts of life events shouldn't rock us. A slight wobble, sure, but nothing life-altering. We're fully-fledged humans, after all.

'Therapist speak' saturates our culture. We're supposed to be able to pull coping strategies out of thin air — if you are well-adjusted. And at times, I'm barely adjusted. Or could use readjusting — can't we all?

There was a cruel irony having my parents separate a few months before I planned to walk down the aisle and pledge 'forever'.

I tried not to let it throw me off my game, but eight years later, I still feel slightly wobbly.

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Even adults crave the illusion of parental unity. When mine shifted into separate entities, the loss was stark and unnerving. Humans crave compartmentalisation. We love a box. A category. A label. It allows our brains some semblance of order and when no neat explanation was offered, I was lost.

I even encouraged them to separate — "you'll be happier!" Once the deed was done, I certainly wasn't happier. And that felt selfish. It felt childish. I had wanted this, hadn't I? I had internalised the idea that adults should tolerate discomfort with stoicism and a dash of empathy.

Coping while caring — what a feminine concept.

I welcomed the emotional labour with an open heart, despite its weight beckoning me to sit.

As women, we're taught to do more than survive — we're meant to thrive, or at least look like we are. Emotional intelligence is so high on the cultural bingo card these days that it's often worn as a badge of honour, if you can sail through shit times with a sad, warrior-like smile on your face.

Clearly, being an adult child of divorce does wound you, even if you have the band-aid ready and waiting.

As the new emergency contact for both parents, my role flipped on its head. They no longer came as a package deal, and I was a pseudo partner. The call from paramedics when my father had a heart attack was particularly seismic. Gripped by nausea, the shift from child to quasi-carer became painfully clear.

Meanwhile, my mother suddenly appeared to me as a walking, talking, woman of the world — as if previous versions of her were just a mirage. Not just carer, driver, cook — she was a woman, and I was startled by the way divorce had stripped her of those roles and presented her to me in parental nakedness.

It felt absurd to have this sudden awakening as an adult — how had I not seen this before?

Anna Macdonald and her mother. Image: Supplied.

The grief associated with parental divorce is visceral. Somehow, I feel both sad and hopeful. The tension between past and present presses in on me in a way that is uncomfortable.

Growth rarely arrives without discomfort, and this feeling has allowed me to appreciate my parents as two separate humans. Two blemished people, like me, wading through the world with wide eyes.

Sure, sometimes their humanity makes me uneasy. Looking too closely makes me squirm, but if I don't tear my eyes away, I witness the cracks and grooves and marks that make them mine. My parents.

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My sense of home has changed. Christmas isn't what it was when I was a child, and that's okay. I'm realising home is a mixtape of memories from past and present — living within them and within me. It's Paul Kelly playing in the LandCruiser as we float along Main Beach.

It's Fat Bottomed Girls through the loungeroom stereo — laughter so hard I think my guts might burst.

It's September by Earth, Wind and Fire bouncing off the restaurant walls as my husband thrusts my hand into the air with pride and I glimpse my parents' gaze — delight plastered on their faces for everyone to see.

I've lost them as a unit, but gained something else entirely. I've learnt to love them in new, hard ways. Each has their own melody now—but together, their music forms the soundtrack of my life.

Feature Image: Supplied.