They never built a life.

My parents never seemed to build a life together. For as far back as I can remember, they only stumbled through, days and years passing without a meaning, without any sort of message to their children desperately searching, asking.

My mother became depressed, I think she started to see it for what it was - living without kindness, without love, without reason, art and beauty.

My father, even now, sees it every now and again, but pushes it away. It's too hard to think so much has been wasted by thoughtless cruelty.

A friend once asked me what my childhood was like. I hadn't been keeping it a secret; it's finally starting to fade. I turned my heart inside out trying to explain it to someone who'd been well-loved, then left it as one word - fear.

My sister and I spent a night a few weeks ago trading stories. Only two years apart, and our experiences were so different. I told her about the early morning orthodontist appointment, trying to explain exactly how I fell in such a way as to drive my braces into my cheek, almost as though I'd been hit.

There were four of us, four children now adults, all still listening for what we never heard, what we never felt when we were young.

The oldest searching, always, for approval, seeking some sort of reward for self-denial. Like her father, endlessly critical, impatient with any fault. She looks for god because the gods of her childhood disappointed her so thoroughly.

Myself, the youngest girl, at 27, an uncertain lover, still asking "Can you love me?" , but always sure of the real answer. Taught to hate myself so completely, I can't bear the scrutiny of being wanted.

The oldest boy, now a bitter, confused manchild. Blame and anger seeps from every pore, and he deadens it with drugs, with danger.

The baby, he was never able to harden his soft spirit, so he pushes himself further and further away with every passing moment to save his heart, and seek his own approval.

I haven't lived with my father in more than a dozen years. How long do I live in the shadow of a childhood that should evaporate, pass like smoke through me? Now I reinvent myself, turning every fear into a question, asking, always asking, how to make a life of meaning and love. The best I've come up with is to tell myself not to waste any time telling people how unbelievably perfect and deserving of love they are. I try to let anger be only an experience, and kindness the rule. What else do I have?