Tonight I launched a very bare bones Facebook page dedicated to my blog. It is my hope that people not on my friends list who come across it will enjoy it as well as allowing people on my friends list who are not interested in my blog to avoid having to see posts about it.
Now on to some thoughts that occured as a result of my past few weeks of research and redesign.
One thing that really struck me this past week in particular is that studying your family history doesn't come with just "Wow" moments. There are also those moments that hit you full in the face and sicken you. There are events or anecdotes that punch you in the gut and make you look at living relatives a little differently, especially when you suddenly find out that something awful happened and they never received recompense.
I often struggle to explain my obsession with history to those who think I live too much in the past. My only defense is that because I grew up with a blank slate, my likes and dislikes, my passions and behaviors didn't make much sense to me. I was supposed to just accept them for their existence, change the ones that no one else liked, and not wonder why it was so difficult to change the things I wanted to change. I kept asking what if there is a reason I am this way? Shouldn't I figure out the cause of behavior in order to change it? We have to take the good history with the bad history because together they explain the actions of the present.
I heard once that you can't know where you're going until you first know where you've been. It stuck with me. I've made so many mistakes in my past that I didn't understand at the time why I was even making those choices. Perhaps it was because I didn't know what I'd already been through? Because I didn't know the screwed up and amazing things my ancestors did, did I possibly remake the mistakes they made?
The other history/past related quote we've all heard, ad nauseum, is that 'Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it.' Doesn't that fit in with what I'm trying to say? Because I didn't know about the abuses endured by those before me, because I didn't know what horrors those actions entailed, I made the same mistakes, made the same choices. I didn't know that my great grandfather would hit my great grandmother in the face for no reason as she served him his dinner. 50 years later, I found myself as a battered wife. Well don't that beat all? Pun only slightly intended.
Before I met my biological father, I couldn't hold down a job. 3-6 months and that was it. I always walked away. You'd think with the dedication I saw in my adoptive parents on the farm, I would have had a fantastic work ethic. But no. I always felt lost and adrift.
Within a few years of late night talks with Pop and learning about the people in my immediate family, I soon found myself feeling more complete. A little bit each day. A little more understanding of why I was the way I was. I began to trickle out what was unacceptable in my life and embrace the parts of me that made me unique.
Eventually I found myself at a part time job that soon became a full time job, and before I knew it, I was running a store for that company. I spent three and a half years with there. The next company got me for five and a half, the next another three and a half. In 12 1/2 years, I worked for only 3 companies with only 3 months of that unemployed. The previous 12 years saw more unemployed time than paychecks and 10 jobs. There was even one that only lasted 3 days.
I fully well and truly believe that because I finally found out where I came from, learned why I was into certain things, why I loved Rock n' Roll, I was finally able to put myself together enough to hold down a job and provide for my son. It is a shame that I couldn't get it together before then for my daughters.
It is a downright dirty shame that I couldn't be there and be the mother that they deserved. I failed them because someone else had failed me and I couldn't couldn't grow up enough to see past that anger. I was broken, and it's going to really suck if my brokenness caused them to break too. I can only hope that if they find themselves needing answers they have the courage to reach out. I'm not hiding and I haven't been hiding all these years. I've been available this entire time.
This past October the older one turned 19. In January the younger turns 17. They are young women who know very little truth about me. They know the truth from someone else's perspective, but not mine. What they've been told is probably pretty accurate, but I guarantee it's not the whole truth, because it's not all perspectives.
I remember when I met my older half-sister and she flat out told me that because I was willing to give our father the time of day, she wanted nothing to do with me. She said "If you give that waste of space time of day, I don't want to know you because it means you're as worthless as he is." This was a whole two minutes into knowing me.
My sister had heard her entire life stories from her mother, a pissed off and jilted ex, about how worthless our dad is. She had no interest in learning his side of the story, had no desire to learn another perspective, didn't care to learn if he had grown or changed. I haven't a clue as to whether or not my daughters will follow suit. But I can pray that God will lead them to the answers they need.
History is important. There is no way around that. When the past is unknown, how can you possibly look forward with the tools you need, a.k.a. as much information as possible?
Just my thoughts for the day.
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