Dear Diary,
I know that I grew up differently than everyone else. I know that it's not normal to be locked up for your whole life, or for your father to view you as an object that's sole purpose is to please him. I don't like to think about it, because I always knew it was wrong.
For most of my younger years, before I caught my father's eye, I was slave to the insanity that was his wife. She had me cleaning every day, and liked to create new ways to punish me when I couldn't reach her ridiculous standards. These were the days before the crate, and although the punishments were severe, I was given a small amount of freedom within the locked doors. Marie's room was always off limits, as were my stepmother's suite and the kitchen. I wasn't expressly forbidden to go into the study, so whenever I found the chance, I would sneak a book or two from his shelves.
They were everything you would expect to see in an educated man's library. The Classics, Poetry, a set of the Encyclopedia Britannica from 1979, and various reference tomes. By the time I was ten, I had read every book in my father's fake library. I call it that because I'm the only one who ever even cracked them open. I can tell you about tax codes from the sixties, or how to skin a rabbit. I've read about money laundering and leather tanning and the collected works of William Shakespeare. There were books in Spanish and about the history of America, and I drank in every word on every page. Some were fiction, and I liked those best. Many were first editions, and I treated them all like they were friends. He had subscriptions to several magazines for the sole purpose of making him look smarter when people saw them sitting on an end table. Popular Mechanics, Scientific American, National Geographic, and a few others. I got to learn about the world through them, and for a short time, I could find distraction from the pain.
I feel lost now. Wandering in a world that I know nothing about, and floundering to find my feet. I want to be more, to do more, but I don't know how. A line from Henry David Thoreau keeps running through my mind, "Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves."
Well, I'm waiting to understand...
