Different Drum

After reading some comments and such from "Story Of My Life", I was afraid that maybe I had come across as bitter or blaming towards my parents for my childhood and I just wanted to clarify that was not the case. Like I said, it was what it was. I didn't have the best childhood but I wasn't abused either; I always had enough to eat and clothes to wear and in a lot of ways my having to be so self-reliant has aided me greatly now. I just wish sometimes I had not felt so alone back then and I'm afraid now that that feeling of being on my own, forever, affects me subconsciously. I believe sometimes I inadvertently give people, especially guys, the idea that I want to be alone. That's not it at all, it's just all I know.
What I was trying to say, in addition to what I believe made me how I am now, is just that about everybody in this world is dealt at least one crappy card. It might be your health, your family, your position in life or whatever but you can't let that one, or even more, crappy cards dictate your life. With enough determination you can many times turn that crappy card into an advantage even. I had two friends growing up that were sisters. Now, they had a rough go of it. They had a horridly, abusive childhood. I saw it with my own eyes and even suffered through some of it with them, unknown to my own family. I recently found the two of them through the wonders of the Internet. The oldest one, that is my age, has done well for herself and has a good man and looks like, two sweet kids. The sister is a year younger than us and she is just the opposite. She has had her kids taken from her and is in and out of rehab all the time. Now, I am NOT putting her down. I still love my friends and feel so badly for her. If anybody has a reason to still struggle with things, it's these two. But at some point you have to just determine that you are not going to let those bad things rule you anymore. Yeah, shitty things happen to good people but you have to find a way to pick yourself up and say, well, I didn't deserve that, but I also don't deserve to suffer the rest of my life. Now, some of you may say, that's easy for you to say, you didn't have an abusive childhood and you would be right. But I have suffered through several staggering blows in my life at any rate. I paid and provided, albeit unknowingly, for my own brother's preferred method of offing himself. Have that happen and see how bad it screws with your brain. And I succumbed to it for several years. But then I said I have to go on. It was not my decision for these things to happen in my life but it is my decision in what I do now.
It may seem that I'm a little off topic but really it's still the same. When my own family said, "you should have just been born a boy" or "if you are going to be like this, you don't even need to get married" and on and on, it hurt me for a long time. I couldn't understand what was wrong with me and why they felt so determined to point it out. Just let me be me, I'm not a bad person because I can weld!! But I finally realized this was my life and they didn't have to be me, so it was up to me to make my life what I wanted. And they could stuff it if they didn't like it.

On another note, turns out I was even more correct about the 'faulty genetics' than I thought! After writing that post I just happen to stumble upon several articles about a genetic disorder that affects infant girls before they are born. Turns out, I am just one, big birth defect! I'll tell ya'll what I mean later but it does help explain 'me' quite a bit.


*Linda Ronstadt