I have put between myself and my parents such a gulf of sophistication that it’s impossible for them to touch me now or to reach me at all. And I look back across that gulf, not with a sense of guilt or loss, but with relief and satisfaction. Am I better than they are? Certainly not, although maybe luckier. But I am different, and I don’t understand them very well, and I can’t live with them or draw them into my inner world—or for that matter write about them.
