Under the Canopy

Growing up, it fell to me to manage family members' alternate realities.  Individually, their alternate realities were in conflict not only with each other, but also with my own.  Jim and Mom insisted that their alternate realities were true.  Janet and Dad would occasionally impose their realities on me and never challenged Jim's and Mom's realities in healthy ways.  There was screaming and yelling and leaving the house for brief instances.  I didn't see any behaviors that I wanted to adopt.  Mom and Dad never talked about divorce, but it was on our minds.  I remember thinking about and talking over with Jim who we would like to stay with in the case of divorce.  There many considerations for and against both parents.    I won exactly one argument with Mom. And until I was able to open his eyes to very difficult truths in the last months of his life, I hadn't won any arguments with Jim.  Mom Mom was someone who will argue with you ...