This is extremely long, it's about my home life and what Daoism did that helped me work through it, but there's a lot of history I want to explain first. If you don't care to read this that's fine- I'd just like to get this all out and share it with the people that helped me grow a lot over the past two years.

I know that ideas about something improving and things getting better are argued against a lot in Daoism but if we didn't have a reason we wouldn't be here. My reason, outside of passing interest, is being a better person- being able to flow with the Dao more and to live happier.

My home life isn't all that great. Around the time I was 8 my parents divorced and my dad remarried. Because I was good in school but not very social I got made fun of a lot by my new stepsisters and I quickly became the black sheep. My stepmother, caught up in vanity about appearances, would compete with my dad about who's kids were better, and because I didn't feel confident enough to defend myself I started to shut down at home and hide in my room. I had a few outbursts, but as a 10 year old, arguing with a condescending adult scared me. I would eventually start crying and be too incoherent for what I was saying to matter. It happened everytime I tried to speak out. This went on for a few years and it led to me spending most of my time at my mom's house and genuinely just trying to stay out of my stepmother's way. All I wanted to do was to not bother her, but if you don't want to be noticed, your efforts won't be noticed.

I kept getting pushed out of my home more and more. She would express disgust at me whenever I said I was there that week, she would forget I was there at all and I'd miss school, she wouldn't care enough to get me out of the room I was forced into and so I missed a lot of meals in middle school. The few times I was at dinner I wouldn't speak. I was really into outer space at the time and if I got excited about it she would say nobody cares and tell me to stop talking.

She did a lot of things to try and put me down- one memory that I typically reference is her yelling "You'll never be smarter than me, you'll never be better than me, and you'll never be more successful than me!"

I was 14, and didn't want to clean my room.

But eventually I got a car, and was out of her hair. I'd see her every couple of weeks and we'd ignore each other. She went to my Eagle Scout ceremony and acted annoyed at my scoutmaster saying nice things about me, and then didn't clap. My friends and I eventually made a game out of the petty things she did.

After that nothing else notable happened. The occasional snide comment about me never being home, and the occasional family trip where I said and did nothing. I ignored the problem, pretending like the trauma from years of berating didn't exist, and I hoped it would stay that way until I graduated and moved out.

But a number of things happened recently- I wrecked my car, and my dad, who was already stretched thin because of a new house, had to work way more. On top of that he had to pay for me to go to college, and dorms aren't cheap. He was hardly around his wife because of his second and third job, and by extension because of me. To make this worse, the only time I was around was when I needed my dad to sign a check. Don't get me wrong, I love my dad, but seeing him wasn't worth the fear of facing her.

Tonight I was at his computer reading about housing and she got home and complained about my car being in a different spot, and they started fighting about me in front of me and my younger stepsister. For me the Daoist response has always been avoidance, but I had done that for years and it only got worse. In pretending like my problems didn't exist they got worse. To me Wu Wei isn't about not acting- it's about acting in a way that's natural to you. Repressing emotions isn't natural, and only builds things up that have to be released.

As I got off the computer and walked away to my car so I could go home, I heard them continue talking about me, and I felt that I should, for the first time in years, speak. And so I did.

Despite all my fear, despite shaking like crazy, I turned around and asked why they fought about me. I said what I needed to say to her, and I didn't cry. She dodged what I was saying, gave vague answers, pretended like there was no fight in the first place, and refused to acknowledge the problem, and that was fine. I had made my point to her in front of my dad and her daughter and that was enough. I walked outside, breathed in, and smiled, and let it go.

My dad called and we talked about it, and I didn't apologize for anything I said, but I also didn't need to.

I texted my stepsister and apologized, and she said it was okay, and that she understands her mother isn't the nicest to me. I remembered that, even though I'm so alienated from my stepsister, there's still a level of understanding. We still see good in each other. This was the first time I cried tonight.

And then driving back to my mom's house I daydreamed. Instead of imagining the situations where my stepmother finally got her comeuppance, where I finally defeated her in some arbitrary debate and everyone could see the truth, I was thinking about having a casual conversation about her and our differences, and her smiling. This was the second time I cried.

And when I got home, I checked my phone and she texted me and said "I don't know where to start to fix any of this." And I said "It's okay. Just talking is fine."

And I meant that. No grudge held, no anger or fear, just wanting to resolve everything.

And that was the third time. Here's to hoping.