Nat

You appeared in a dream to your dad before you were born and made it clear you wanted to be in a family that wouldn't hurt you. The rage you responded with when, out of desperation or ignorance, one of us tried to physically punish you, was a direct result of that promise being broken. So we all learned as you grew up to drop the Fundamentalist parenting tactics and let you have your autonomy.

You insisted on not wearing shoes or socks in the Michigan winters. You insisted on sleeping glued to someone for the first few years of your life. You sang songs you made up and spoke in full sentences by the time you were a year and a half old. You insisted we should all vote for Obama when you were knee-high to a grasshopper and you gave good arguments for why. You watched infomercials during bouts of insomnia and insisted we needed a Stick Shark. You ate history, social studies and science up like it was candy, wowed your teachers with math skills.

As you entered puberty, your sharpness began to cut you in earnest and you muffled it up with marijuana. We tried to find other ways to help that didn't bury you so much, but you still weren't interested in putting our ideas over yours... and to be fair, there's no guarantee our solutions were any better, anyway. You are now a shadow of that burning child, something I think a lot of people do at some point in their lives because this world is a shitty place to be brilliant. You still have dreams and they're sound. You're ridiculously handy and people in the skills professions you're chasing notice. I'm still proud of you.