… to marvel darkly at how the mythologies inflicted upon us can live through generations …

The unspoken mythology we were born into, boiled down, amounts to: Fear is stronger than love.

I don’t want to believe it, but at the most basic visceral level, my not-wanting doesn’t make it my not-inheritance. My not-wanting doesn’t make it any less crippling to dreams, or to elusive delight in life.

It remains my cross and our cross as a tribe, to bear regardless.

I only have one other thing to say on the subject, and that is:

I refuse categorically to be blamed for The Fear existing, for its pervasive permutations, or for triggering it, in anyone, and especially not to anyone who nurtured it into me from childhood.

Suggesting to me that I should self-sacrificingly shoulder some major slice of that guilt will only make me a little more aFraid, and therefore inevitably do nothing more than just piss me off.

A self-righteous, brittle anger to be sure.

I own that much, but I will hoard my shame and ration it out only when I need for you to know.