It's difficult not to think about what I might have turned out like, what life might have been like had the divorce not happened. It's difficult not to imagine it when every visit to my father seems like a trip into an alternate universe - a world of what-ifs. If I had grown up in that kind of intact family, if my talents had been fostered in that strict and ambitious environment with constant supervision and guidance, would I be a more successful and less damaged person now? Could I have avoided depression altogether, could I have pushed through my weaknesses and be a child that my parents can brag about truthfully now? Would that success have been worth giving up all of my freedom in exchange, the same freedom that enabled me to become the person I am now?
Or would I have crumbled under all that pressure and all the comparisons that it invites? After all, I still carry all the scars from the expectations of my own childhood, still fight with the mental bagagge that has accumulated over the years. Even with the divorce, I still had gone through a fair share of that strict grooming, those periods of expectations. And although all those well-meant efforts and the attention still mean a lot to me and, without doubt, helped me get where I am now, who can say just how much they've contributed to all these malfunctioning parts of me now?
The questions may continue to return and haunt me, but they are questions without answers. Ultimately, you can only judge life from the viewpoint of the person you are, and the person you are is a product of all of your experiences. There is no other you - no other version of you, no other possibility of yourself. But I still wonder.
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