Each time you hear your parents quarrel, you silently swear to yourself that you'll never end up like them. Miserable and lonely. Never ever. You learn like this- you make little promises to yourself along the way. You learn who you want to be, how you want to act and react, what you want in life. But how little promise those little promises hold. Never ever say never. You flare up without warning, something just triggers it somehow and you fly into a passion and in the midst of it all you catch yourself off-guard, red-faced and flustered, and you stagger to a halt and ask yourself, "What's wrong with me?" And then the realization hits you hard in the face: I am just like my parents, their blood running through my veins.

It is carved into your bones. You grew up watching it and knowing it intimately- what it means to feel defective. To wake up and loathe what you see in the mirror- your mother's eyes, your father's lips, the sound of your voice when you speak- a weak squeak at best, the way you walk- you hunch too much, and the way you interact with other people- too careful with your words, too awkward and too loud when you try to overcompensate. What it means to feel unloved and out of place. You carry all these things with you, and you wrestle with them, agonize over them, every single day. It takes every effort in the world to remind yourself, that you are not responsible for your parents' lives, that you are not responsible for their entire happiness. I love you, but there's only so much I can do. But you are completely responsible for your own life and your own happiness, and you can and you have to take charge and birth a new you.