He was always the subject of the many family dinners he had made himself apparently adjacent from. In making himself the resident black sheep of his no longer residence, the remaining family of four hadn't seized conversation of him as the heads of the house had hoped to, this though was the product of their own pettiness, and they were usually used to broaching conversation of much happier they had been since his absence. The house, which by a community by-law had to look the same as the others, held a sterility that made the Swedish furniture appear as though it were still in it's show room, everything almost exclusively came from that one same store. The mass produced art prints and colourful imitation vases made it feel as though his creativity were being strangled out of him. Something which his parent's never would have suspected as a reason for his departure.

  It was always a matter of his breaking of their conventional household. No son of there's would waste money on art school. "It's a waste of time why should I pay for you to go finger paint and make pottery for 6 months. I won't have any part of it.". Of course. But this was a classic undermining of his sons potential. He didn't have the forethought to think that he'd already saved from all his work after graduating, or that he could get scholarship with his exceptional grades. What he had thought of was his sons recreational use of drugs during the later year of highschool and following his graduation. He thought of how he would prefer not to think of his sons deplorable ****** behaviour and preference. He didn't see what he had seen in his son as a child, and that had bothered him.

   While his mother was the far more liberal of the two, she was still extremely far to the right on a political standing. She waived to keep her feelings undisclosed, and stand beside her husband in this matter. The night her first child had left home, seemingly for good, he made no qualms about it. She stayed in here room, and let the father and son have their rages boil to the point where neither one could co-exist with the other following. She thanked god that this was a Friday night, the kids were out, they had not had to be subjected to the profane language that was used. One arrived later that night, and one that next morning to see one less person, and his quiet, slightly less full room.

  With a major in both Art and Graphic Design, he resigned his life over to his set of standards and his rules. He held himself to his lightened standards and not to the overbearing will of people who wanted to hold him down, and keep him in an office. He couldn't take the church any more and he couldn't take the passive aggressive nature of his parents, backhanding every admission or praise with some constructive put down. He was living for himself and he wanted to take that power away from the people who had previously lived for him. His drug use and "questionable" sexuality were at his digression. As they always should have been.

   But he couldn't help but think of that night, and think of even now that kind of hell that must be put upon his dear brother and sister, for whom were the only reason he had held on as long as he did. He knew that rules would be that much more unbearable and strict, and that the remaining families consumption of religion would be at an all time high.

    He didn't hate his father. He didn't hate his mother. He just couldn't understand them much in the same way that they couldnt understand him, the generational gap stretched so far that they couldn't see the perspective of the other.  He could get past their choice of religious commitment, he could get past their incessant need for perfection and their passive aggressiveness , but he couldn't get past their blatant racism to both minority groups and the underprivileged, their homophobia, and by virtue hatred of all ****** relationships outside of a monogamous man and woman. He couldn't understand how people could get so far and have so much success with this much prejudice, especially in a time such as this, it infuriated him to think that he could put in everything he has, and be a better person, and still come up not nearly as successful as his father.

   He had to go because he wasn't them and he wasn't going to be, he wasn't going to try to be. He couldn't help in either his excessive love or hate of both of his parents. In the respect that the memory of his father spitting on his face the night he left is coupled with the memory of being a young boy, and getting ice cream with his father, at the zoo. Where the final blow to their relationship had happened was something that neither party could pinpoint, but it was a long, spanding gradient into loathing from the basic, essential love of a son and his parents.

   With this the only commitment he swore to keep was that he would never become his father.