Thinking more about my family, the lessons they tried to teach me, the values and little (big!) rules they tried to inculcate in me with varying degrees of success. There is a word or phrase for the phenomenon of someone choosing to take a step down in status. I cannot remember it. At any rate, however I might sneer at their priorities, at their way of life, part of it is steeped in bitterness, but also an awful lot of the way I was raised persists within me, causing all sorts of conflict.

I'm not certain that thumbing my nose at them and going my own way in life, despite their warnings, was the smartest thing to do. I was questioning the little social rules and complexities from early childhood, was always different. Sometimes it occurs to me that I should turn around and make my way, very arduously at this point, down a path more closely aligned with those values and rules. Maybe I could redeem myself in their eyes. Maybe I could get to a point where they wouldn't be embarrassed of me anymore. Maybe I could be one of them again and feel respectable. The thing of it is, there was so little love and warmth in that childhood, which is most of why I rejected that lifestyle. I had decided that happiness and love, creativity and acceptance, were more important than money, social status, and conformity. I'm not sure why I decided that those things were incompatible, why I thought that ditching success as a goal would bring me a happier personal life.

(more is forthcoming but need time to think)