At the risk of this becoming a grim getting to know you node, I feel obliged to share a bit of arrowfall here.

I was unplanned and untimely. My conception happened seven years into a marriage that began to die before it even started - and this event further staved off the inevitable and permanently bound together two people who really should have been allowed to go their separate ways. They earned it.

My mom was thought to be infertile after a particularly grizzly miscarriage earlier in the marriage. About the time she was realizing that no love was involved in this union she became pregnant. As a result, it took her several more years to enact a divorce she'd decided on long ago.

Both my parents love me very much - more so than they ever loved each other. It has been difficult to piece together this story as nobody in their right mind would admit these things to a child. But piece it out I have - mostly because I have been much more a counselor than a son to both my parents. This has allowed me to view the twisted legacy that resulted in my birthright from two radically different points of view.

So what has this knowledge wrought in my life? It is difficult to separate cause from effect in the circumstances between mother, father and myself. I have felt guilt from time to time because my parents felt an obligation to remain together - even after the divorce - for my sake. I think the main effect is that I have been a buffer between these two unmatched people. Because I served to bind them, I also keep them apart.