Now What?

For 20 years I’ve grappled with the tales my parents left me with. I've considered more permutations of possible intentions than I could possibly list, but there are a few that just keep coming back. Still, they are so intertwined that I have difficulty trying to focus on just one. But that’s what I have to do. I need to think them through, one by one, and clarify for myself the possible implications. I will write them out clean and simple. And then, I think I might return the favor. On my worst days, confronting them seems to clearly be the right thing to do.

Not once in all these years have either of my parents mentioned anything relating to what they told me. No apologies, no admission of guilt, no caveats or addendums. I wonder if they think it is all water under the bridge now. I wonder if they have even allowed themselves to remember what they told me. At some level they must be in denial. If confronted would they admit to telling me the things they said? If not to me, would they admit it to each other? They left me to deal with this all on my own, and as my anger and hate festered and grew they behaved as though I was a possessed child who had absolutely no reason to treat his parents so unkind. How could I possibly be so ungrateful?

I was only being honest. I wonder how much of the truth they can handle.