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Sometimes, I feel like everywhere I go I'm the stepchild. I'm not anyone's real kid, but the cast-off, the leftover, the "baggage." I read in Newsweek a few weeks ago that only ten percent of divorces actually involve children. Crazily enough, I'm in the minority.

But I guess it's not too crazy, if you think about it. Most of my friends can't empathize with me, instead, I'm the comfort when their parents are fighting. Sometimes, I want to be the one to say "oh, well, my parents haven't talked to each other in two years."

This Thanksgiving made me feel more like a step child than I've ever felt before. I kept searching for "the real parent" and yet, when I looked into my Dad's eyes, I felt lesser than the other kids. This is weird, because I don't want to feel jealousy towards three kids under ten. Moreover, I want to convince myself that this is just jealousy on my part. I'm moody. It's just college stress that's making me paranoid.

But whatever I did, in the six short days I spent in Michigan, I couldn't help but feel like the stepchild. It's hard to define exactly what a stepchild is. It's not like Lifetime movies, where the stepparent is some sort of secret evil, or like in "Stepmom" that one Julia Roberts movie where the two Moms make peace with each other. In truth, both parties make fun of each other, when they've only met  briefly. Stepparents can be great people. They can pay for your school. They can make you feel at home. Sometimes, and understandably so, they're looking out for their own kids.

For three months last year, my mom spent the week in Chicago, and weekends home, in Arizona, for her work. This left my stepdad and I home together, where we would engage in three word discussions and awkwardly go about our own activities.

Here's what I've discovered about stepparents: I love them. But whatever I do, and whatever they do, we can never love each other like the real thing. There's too many other important things going on in each other's life.