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I followed my own trail of commenting back a few months in pursuit of a particular piece of information. I found my own comment to a post The Voice wrote back in June. As it relates to a few previous posts and provides a bit more back ground information about me, I figured I'd add it here.

There comes a point in life when we begin to question things, particularly those that define us as different from the norm. I was about 8 or so when it occurred to me that I was the only child I knew with my father as my legal guardian (as opposed to my living mother). To explain this, he thought it was best to march me down to the court house and let me read all the divorce documents myself. The battle between my mother and father was vicious to say the least. When I was done processing all that I could handle, I sat in the fetal position with tears running down my face. My father looked at me with cold eyes that cut me to the bone: "You were born to save a dying marriage. When that didn't work, we had to figure out what to do with you." That was supposed to excuse away the years of abuse and pardon the years to come. I tried my best to put it out of my mind, but that's not something easily displaced. He reaffirmed his disgust for me when I was 15 and blatantly demanded that he and his wife stop searching my room. Through clenched teeth, with those cold metallic eyes he hissed, "I hate your G-d damned guts!"

I've never been one for the expression "forgive and forget." There are a lot of things in my life I've been able to forgive, but there are things that one will never be able to forget. It's those unforgettable things, for better or worse, that have made me who I am today and for that I am grateful. For all my lack of self-confidence, I do consider myself a rather successful person. I've done so much and had so many opportunities open to me because of my persistence to not accept the "norm." I want more out of life than I was given. I think I've done a fairly good job at achieving that so far. My father never thought I'd be successful without his help. In spite of him, and to spite him, I think I've turned out fairly well.