Another wonderful essay.

Regarding these highlighted lines, great way to be and I'm working on getting better at that. It's particularly hard with family, which I see as I've already read the story through once you have done very well in those regards. It was so wonderful to read that you understand your mother and she now understands you and has realized that what works for her, what makes her happy, is not your destiny and that she has not failed you and that she is happy that you are happy and that she is very proud of you and defends you.

So that they will know me--that is the primary reason that I wish my family, to be specific, my two children, my two sisters, and my mother (the rest I don't care) would read me. One sister reads me fairly regularly now but I have no idea what she thinks of anything I write--I had asked her to leave a single clap so I know if she has read something and she obliges with that. I have to beg my kids (17 yr old son finishing up his junior year in high school and 19 yr old daughter finishing up her freshman year of college (computer science major and some kind of business-related minor and another minor in film and media--she is so much better than me in so many ways and in other ways has much to learn--I wrote this poem and lengthy explanation, https://medium.com/illumination/a-fathers-pride-and-joy-6838f4d059e6 , when she got accepted)) to read, which I only do when I think they can learn from what I have written whether they agree with it or not, but they rarely do read.

Re me and my mother, I've decided it's easier on her not to know me and probably better off that way. Her marriage of 58 years to my father, to whom I don't speak anymore (my choice) but have forgiven but I won't reconcile without amends and when I told her what I mean by amends she decided we'll just leave things the way they are.

The question you were asked by the reader does not surprise me at all. I have experienced it with a very close friend. I asked him to read one of my essays a couple of years ago that included Lindsey's death, my spiritual awakening, my channeled through Anne discussions with her soul and my guides, how this is my 17,043rd incarnation, etc., and he said he had difficulty understanding what I meant with all my fictional and metaphor points...I told him every word was fact. Now I choose carefully and sparingly what to ask him to read.

I'm not surprised DTM found the question surprising. Now I need to be sure not to editorialize. I commented to him 3 weeks ago (gosh it seems like longer) "I don't see the line 'lest I blow my brains out in a fit of despair and introspective resolve' as harmless fun. I think it's insensitive and irresponsible to write that line." He replied "Who do you think you are? I don't care what you think." I replied, "ok, goodbye," and decided to unsubscribe to him. I see now that he blocked me. I had no idea he blocked me until just now. Had he cared why I said what I said, I would have pointed out that, as have too many, I have lost a close friend to suicide (https://medium.com/illumination/dizain-of-suicide-72bcde4dc8d8 ) and another close friend to not caring enough to live--unintended suicide. I could describe the proximate cause of Lindsey's death in the same way. I could have included all that in my comment but I doubt that would have made him care.

I did learn some interesting things from DTM in the time I did read him, especially the concept of the narcissism of small differences. I guess it was just time to move on, which is too bad as I loved many of his essays. When I read his one about turning 55, or maybe one around the same time, I told him he was one of my favorite writers on Medium. He liked that comment very much.