Aha

I just had an Aha! moment.  Too bad David isn't around to hear this (or maybe he is?).

We always wondered why we related so much to each other's whole lives?  His childhood was so harsh and his family so dysfunctional, whereas my family was affectionate and functional and my childhood rather sheltered.  But I realized our childhoods were basically the same, because despite coming from a functional family, I was dysfunctional.  I was in a prison I couldn't get out of, and David was imprisoned by a dysfunctional father and grandmother.  That sounds so simple when I say it like that, but when I thought it, it felt like a brick crashing through my head.  It broke a window wide open and I looked outside for the first time.

Holy Cow.  I was right there in prison with you, David.  From the very beginning, early childhood, and we just kept finding more and more ways to imprison ourselves which is why our journeys were so rocky and dark and why we needed each other just to survive.  Looking back, it was damn good fun!!   I would do it all again.  Just wish I had thought of this when we could have discussed it.

And, looking outside of this broken window as it falls apart around me, I am delighting in the lack of walls and limitations, the clarity with which I can see my future (like a lighted path in a dark forest), and a sense of connection to everything everywhere.