Myopia

It is sad to me to see how we all end up being our own 20 or 30 somethings with the same sad myopia tunnel vision of what our parents did to shape us. I always said that, no matter what, they wouldn't be the basis of who I am, who I was, or what I will be, and yet I look around and see we are all, inevitably, linked to this sad and damaging experience that was our youth, and (mostly by default) was our parenting and upbringing. I would like to think we move beyond, that we move above and can separate ourselves, but even as I hope for and want to believe in these things, I continue to circle back to the disappointments and damages of my childhood. Those people are gone now, though my father lives on, the being and person that he was in my youth exists no more (what I didn't realize is that his personality was being damaged then too, a self-fulfilling circle of negativity all in the family). My mother is gone. I have no recourse, and truly, I want no recourse. I am stuck like a damaged record in the negative groove of memory that was my childhood. How to release it? How to release myself? Remembrance does not allow forgiveness. Forgetfulness I have tried. Where do the ties break? I want to own these things, if only so that I can take them into the darkness of my heart and then find a way to let them go.