General Discussion

I grew up in Iowa, which was blue as long as I could remember… and then Rush Limpballs appeared and suddenly, my mum (my dad had died and she’d been seeing an Air Force vet who obviously skewed her thinking) and siblings fell hard for the bullshit.

I moved to Florida (then blue) in like… ’89, and pretty much left my family behind at that point. So weird that people I grew up with so easily became strangers, except that I was always considered the odd one out—introverted, not superficial enough, whatever. I think I finally realized I must’ve been a changeling when I was about 14. My folks came back from a trip to Arizona that my dad won at work and brought extravagant gifts for all of us—and mine was simply a t-shirt that declared “I act different because I AM different.” Seriously? I was expecting turquoise jewelry, arrowheads, something not found in corn country… My siblings thought it was hysterical. Me? Not so much.

Good riddance, but I know intimately what it’s like to suddenly be cut off from what you thought was family. I’m sure when it’s your child, it’s much more painful than just losing siblings or a mother who’d lost her way. *sigh*