i'm invincible, so are you

i was having a discussion with ash earlier about the loss of innocence/coming of age/however you want to put it. what qualifies? when do you figure out that life isn't recess and naptime and your parents aren't trying to deny you that toy, they really don't have the money for it and life is really just fucking us all over?

something people generally don't know about me and are often sort of shocked to find out is that i don't remember specific details about my life before the age of 10 or 11 for the most part. i can remember some events and situations with surprising clarity. and i can probably give you a synopsis of the rest of it, but make me try to place it in time and i'm screwed. by the definition we've worked out, i lost my innocence when i was about 3 or so, when my parents got divorced. my stepmother was emotionally abusive. my father was and is a sociopath. people are like "that's horrible, i'm so sorry for you." no. i mean, that's just HOW life is. it's not like it's something i should be pitied for...that i feel like i've lived a thousand lifetimes and i'm not even 16. when i was 3, i knew that people were basically good. but i also knew that people could be mean and cruel and horrible and could use my capacity for love and my innocence against me, whether or not i could express that as articulately as i can now being notwithstanding. it was a truth that i realized at that age. naptimes and recess and toys still existed, but the cynicism was and is this shadow still casting its ugly, awfully realistic tinge over all the innocent, happy, childlike things.

it's scary how many people have realized this. and how many people haven't.