Another P.K. here. My dad was a genuinely loving man who was great with kids and coached the neighborhood sandlot team just for the joy of it.

Yet still, somehow I ended up spending a good deal of my childhood in a great deal of fear. The hell stories from church, exacerbated by an end time film somebody was foolish enough to believe was appropriate for young children, made me afraid to look at the sky for fear of Jesus's return, just in case I didn't make the cut.

Then a couple years later, I finally put the puzzle pieces of my emerging sexuality together during a sermon condemning gay people. I had to bolt out of the pew and hurry to the men's room to lose my breakfast in the toilet. I was 12, or perhaps about to turn 12.

Four more years would pass before I would finally break the chains of fear, but I don't like to think about those years.