Past Does Not Define

When I look into the past, the youngest I can remember being is probably 6 or 7, and the Memory is small. It is a single event.
And the more I think about it, the more I believe that it is the memory that defined the years before I moved out (17).
It is the smaller bedroom in a 2 bedroom trailer. It houses 5 people. The smaller room was for my older sister and I. I don't know where the rest of my family was, I only remember hearing my Mom crying, climbing the side of the red metal bunk-bed to find her bawling on the top bunk.
I'm sure I asked her if she was okay. I'm sure she said yes.
And we both knew she wasn't.
My Father was the cause of this. And until last year (during deployment) it was always that way.
The things I remember most are the painful moments in my life.
I don't have nightmares about them.
I don't dwell on them. But if I try to look back, they are so clear.

As I lay here between a beautiful baby, and a wonderful man, I know that the life we give her will not be like that.
I promised her that if He and I ever got that way, we would leave.
Not so much if he became my Dad, but if we could not get along.
Parents torment their kids so. They think staying together and showing kids how to have an awful relationship is 'what's best'.
I've been waiting for my parents to divorce since I was 11.

Know that your past does not define your future.
Maybe. Maybe it defines mine by motivating me to give my child(ren) the childhood I wanted. One where parents focus on love, not hate.

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