10:37 p.m. | 2006-02-05 The Other Side Of The Tracks. When you�re born, you have an automatic legacy. You come from your parents and your ancestors. Could be good, could be bad. Mostly, it just is. My legacy. Not so great. In many ways. According to MyMother, my conception was the result of marital rape. She was, of course, married to MyDad. According to MyDad, they wanted another child. According to me, I�ll never truly know what happened. I do know that, at the time, they were 20 and 21 years old. They already had two children. Personally? I think they were crazy � having three kids within three years � but that wasn�t so uncommon during that era so I�ll give them the benefit of the doubt. If my conception was the result of marital rape, MyMother chose an odd time to share that news. See, I was raped when I was a teenager but I never told anyone. Years later, I agreed to appear on a news special about the subject. Before that ran, I decided to inform my family. That�s when I told MyMother. Immediately, she topped my story with her story which happened to be about my conception. That�s why I don�t really know what happened. Whenever I�ve gone to MyMother with any kind of struggle, she immediately responds with her own story which is always way worse than mine. While that might be the case, the integrity of story toppers is always in question. Be that as it may, I�ve always given her the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps because it explains why she�s always hated me. That much I know is true. Meanwhile, MyDad always favored me. Yet I never seemed to measure up to his standards. From the get go, I was despised and lacking. Not a good combination. I suffered for many years. But in the latter years, it got better. My parents were very, very young when they had me, and no matter what the deal was with my conception, they didn�t have a clue how to parent young children. Rightfully so as they themselves didn�t have good role models and never studied the subject. They did the best they could do. No doubt that their best lacked, but so be it. For me though, it was difficult. MyMother has always despised me � and still doesn�t like me � and I spent most of my life not measuring up to MyDad�s expectations. On the other hand, I�ve never liked my MyMother and MyDad never measured up to my expectations either. As a kid, I don�t think you�re supposed to be that way. Ironically, my parents taught me to always question authority. Yeah. I don�t think they meant themselves. MyDad and I settled the score before he died. Thankfully. I didn�t expect it, he didn�t expect it but that�s how it turned out. That one last visit was different. Every negative thing between us faded away and new grounds were forged. That one experience made his death much less painful. That�s when I understood that he�d always pushed me because he thought I could take it. That�s when he understood that pushing me didn�t mean diddly if I wasn�t happy. We met somewhere in the middle. We were both happy there. MyMother, not so sure. We�re both trying to make our relationship work, but we still don�t like each other. It�s funny though because we both want the same thing. She wants me to be more forgiving of her and I want her to be more forgiving of me. If we could get there, and I think we�re almost there, that would be great. However, she also wants me to acknowledge that she�s the best mother in the whole world. For that to be possible, I think she�d need to like me first. Meanwhile, I�ll do what I can do. To haloaskew, I totally wanted to be an archeologist but, yeah, no immediate support that way. Ironically, I studied business instead. Ironic because I found out later that MyDad had pegged me for business and YoungerSister for science. I still want to be an archeologist. Maybe someday I will be. your thoughts? seed flower