My parents

My parents were awesome raising us kids. Different but awesome. At least I think they were different. It's so weird how my perception of things is based on what I've experienced, even though that's not always consistent with reality. You may say to yourself, "Perception is reality, Ian!" That is a load of crap. Your (or my) perception of things does not alter reality. If there is a green sky in your perceived world, guess what, it's still blue in reality. Perception may guide or even control how we relate to reality, but it does not change how things really are. Anyway, when it came to their kids, they were ALWAYS there for us, and we never wanted for anything. We weren't rich by any means, but my dad always managed to provide, and my mom did her absolute best to create a loving home environment. However, when it came to THEIR relationship, that was kind of a different story, and very incongruous with how they treated me and my sisters, thus my uncertainty over their comparability to other parents.

I thought my parents should have gotten divorced a million times. After dealing with struggles with my wife the last few years, I can't understand how they made it. Well, yes I can. My parents' relationship was deeply rooted in their religion. They were what I'd call super-Christians. Not over-zealous in their proselyting to others about their beliefs, as some in their religion, but at home everything was rooted in Christianity. Everything was based in faith and the fact that one of their kids didn't follow their example is a sore-spot in their relationship to this day (yeah, it's me, that's a whole chapter...or ten on it's own!) And in the early 90's it was still a little weird to be divorced, or to have divorced parents, in our community, and very uncommon in my parents' religion.

My parents had some ridiculous fights. I'm aware that anyone and everyone can get involved in fights, even with ones you love, but these two seemed like oil and water. Or more like flaming oil and water. It was made worse by my drama-queen, well, drama-princess sisters fanning the flames of the already super-heated oil. There were many times I wanted to smack the crap out of my sisters, for making matters worse with these fights, but somehow I never did. I guess I got that patience from my mom (and my older sister MIGHT have been able to take me, and I didn't want to risk it). She is a saint, or I guess a "true-Christian" as she might say, since they're not Catholic and don't believe in Saints, per se. She was (and is) patient and sweet to the point that I do not know how she dealt with my dad's rants when he'd come home from his dead-end job, frustrated to no end that he hadn't been promoted, or was asked to work overtime with no overtime pay, or didn't get his supposedly deserved accolades for a project, or whatever the complaint was that sent him over the edge that particular day. He was just a negative guy, in general. I think he'd had too many "fire and brimstone" sermons screamed in his face in his lifetime, so he didn't see the positive in life, he just wanted to avoid the hell in the afterlife he envisioned. I never understood that and frankly, didn't want to live my life scared of a terrible afterlife, when I wasn't even sure there was an afterlife! Honestly, I think his religious beliefs didn't really jive with his true desires for how he wanted his life to be and the disconnects pissed him off.

The fights would set the house on high alert, what might be called Terror Level Red, in this day and age. It was pretty bad, and I would simply shut myself in my room and stay quiet, or when I got old enough, just take off for the evening to avoid the meltdown. My dad is a big guy, and there was nothing I could do to protect my mom from the screaming, so I ran away from it. There was never any physical violence, but the yelling was truly unbearable - just mean and derogatory toward a woman who didn't deserve it. It really set the tone for my marriage, and unfortunately the marriages of my sisters later in life.