My childhood sucked, being the only child of two teachers who had me reading before I hit kindergarten but never socialized me as a puppy (Raffette's favorite phrase to describe me). I was also a latchkey kid and I was in trouble all through school, mostly because I was bored to tears and pissed off that being smart took a back seat to football, basketball, wrestling, and anything other than academics. I couldn't wait to get into college where that wouldn't be the case any longer. Boy, was I deluded.

Ended up getting accepted to Belmont College (back before it was Belmont University) in Nashville, which is pretty much the Julliard for country music, but my parents told me they couldn't afford it. (Turns out that wasn't really the case, but that's another very long post.) So, I ended up going to Ball State, which was pretty much just an extension of my high school back then. I turned into a very bitter and angry person before I hit 21. That led to some less-than-ideal career decisions until the mid-90s, when I finally made a good career choice but also made a very poor marriage choice. Having a daughter changed me in ways I wasn't prepared for, but lost her in 1999 when she was only five. That caused me to go completely off-reservation and I was extremely destructive to myself and others. Without going into gory details, I spent five years almost completely off the grid going to some pretty shithole places with nothing but a poor attitude and bad memories. 9/11 happening during this time certainly didn't help my emotional state any. I didn't speak to my family for years. I was getting ready to make an extremely bad decision when I met Raffette. She pulled me out of a very bad place with no shortage of baggage and demons. Somehow, although there was no shortage of it around me, I avoided drug and alcohol addiction through all of this, so at least I don't have *that* baggage as well.

I say all of that not to play for sympathy from anyone. On the contrary, I want to circle back to your first statement about paths not taken. It has only been in the past few years that I have realized that as shitty as the paths I took were, I wouldn't have the life I have right now without having gone down them, and since I love the life I have right now, that means I shouldn't have any regrets about how I got here. I would also probably be a much weaker person, incapable of standing up for myself or anyone else without going through everything I did.

I've gotten rid of most of my regrets. I still have a couple of major demons that will never go away completely, but at least I have them on a leash now, and I'm doing something with my life that makes a difference and that I can be proud of. Like you said, I can live with that.