Why

This weekend amways make me think about my own childhood.

I guess its no secret that I've been reassessing some things in my life lately.

I had the opposite of a good child hood. What I remember most, because there are many things that I can't remember at all, even though I know I should, is pain. Emotional pain. I guess stress is another word. Fear too.

I was terrified of my mom. The woman could yell and say the most terrible things. She would wait until you weren't expecting it too, especially if you'd really pissed her off. Most of the time though, she was jsut distant. Her face in some romance novel. Our mission was to do our chores, which were assigned in such a way that all the housework was on us, and to not bother her, or do anything that might cause her to be bothered.

Then there was my step father the pedophile. I literally had hives for three solid years and it never occured to anyone that something was happening to me on a nightly basis to cause that level of stress that it manifested physically.

The mess I became, the mess I've been, the mess you've read about for years, it probably no surprise to anyone. I just wish somedays that I had been clever enough to avoid most of it.

I don't regret my kids. I do regret the coward I am. You see, its people I am afraid of. And its new people I tend to avoid. Peopl are assholes. They judge you. They steal from you. They use you for what they want and then get rid of you, or just turn into assholes so you get rid of them. They leave you feeling empty and sad. And those are the "normal" ones. That isn't even taking into account the psycos who might actually have rape and murder on their hearts.

But life spent avoiding people is sad and lonely. I don't want to spend my life ignoring my children to read a romance novel. I don't want to spend my time alone and bitter.

And the worst part, the really bad part. Is that the craptastic childhood I had has marked me as strange. I come off as weird, off, inept. People avoid me because I am marked with strangness. And nice, normal people avoid strange.

But I'll be damned if I live like a hermit because of it. I plan to keep trying. To live life and to love my boys and to do my work. And maybe one of these days, I'll have what I want in life.