Reflection on Family

Arguing via blog can be petty. No one really wants to read people attack each other while hiding behind computers. I think a well-handled open-dialogue is always a good answer. Both the benefit and the problem with blogging: it's your blog. You can say what you want. I made the choice to read my brother's blog about his time spent at home. I knew it wouldn't be pleasant. I respect his right to express his feelings on his experience, but I disagree with a lot of what he had to say, as well as the way it was said.

The point of a reflection is to seek truth. Loving creative non-fiction the way that I do, I think reflections are essential to a healthy lifestyle. I love reading other reflections and writing my own. Reflections are supposed to help us question ourselves--our motives, our behaviors, our feelings, how we impact the people and world around us, and in return, how we are impacted by them.

That being said, I was slightly offended by my brother's reflection on our family dynamics. He is entitled to write reflections on his blog. If I felt that his blog entry contained more depth, maturity, and wisdom, I would not be offended by how he perceives things. I would respect his honesty, even if it made me look bad and hurt my feelings a little. I, of all people, understand the importance of truth in writing. In fact, I fear how my family and friends will respond to my own reflections in my eventual memoir. The difference between the plan for my book and my brother's reflection is that mine will not be written out of anger. I know he wrote what he believed to be true, but that's not enough. He was blinded by anger and approached things from a very simplistic perspective.

He criticized our family's boring, surface-level conversations. Most families that I know, or friends of mine who talk about their family dynamics, have simplistic dialogue. Family is not the same as friends. You do not choose these people. The truth is, a family consists of a lot of people of all ages with too many different interests to mention. It is often a challenge to connect with family in a deeper way for this reason. If this is the case, why do we return to our families so regularly? It's about staying grounded. Being reminded where you come from. My sister and I probably would not have hung around each other in High School. We approached high school very differently ( her way being much healthier). Yet, seeing her reminds me of certain traits we share. My cousin and I grew up as best friends. We eventually drifted apart. She has a kid, works for a living, and I went the college route. We have little to talk about anymore, but I still love seeing her and her son. It helps me reflect on some of the experiences I shared with her that helped make me who I am. Family is also a bit of a reality check. A friend of mine once told me that despite having a professional job, her family treated her like a child. She wanted to say, "Hey, do you know that people actually take me seriously?!"

All jokes aside, it is hard for family members to adjust to changes. My family still wants to see me as the always smiling over-achieving adolescent that I was. I want to see my parents as all-knowing, my sister as little and my brother as wiser. That's not reality. Being a member of a family is about accepting truth--throwing aside delusions of how things should be, and embracing for a moment what they are.

My brother says our family has shared delusions of what makes a family, but what kind of delusion is he under? Does he expect our parents to be college professors and his sisters to be strictly intellectuals? The truth is, families like that are not even as good as they sound. Just like they say psychologists can be some of the worst parents. I still am working to readjust the way I view my childhood and my family members. It's tricky not to get stuck in my childhood ways and look to my parents for advice, even though in a lot of situations they can't give me a right or wrong answer. I still seek validation from them. That is unhealthy, and I am working to grow up and take responsibility for my own thoughts. Should I blame them for making me insecure and needing their assurance for everything? Sometimes I felt put down or embarrassed of mistakes, so I learned quickly how to give them responsibility and control of my life. I think that sort of pain and resentment can be approached with dignity. I understand that we are not the kind of family where we can talk about errors of the past. It is incredibly hard for me to stay healthy in an environment where anxiety rules the house and anger is uncontrolled at times.

My brother is right; we are all self-absorbed, but that's the nature of being human. We evolved to take care of ourselves. This returns to his argument from years ago that volunteers are greedy because they make themselves feel better by using people who need help. That IS why people volunteer, but guess what? Everyone wins: the volunteers and the people receiving the services. I have been helped by volunteers on many occasions and I have helped others as a volunteer on just as many. I think self-absorption is normal. It is only the wise who seek to listen better, care more about other people, be less self-absorbed.

Sure, depression is a type of self-absorption, but it is a sickness as well. I was disappointed in the way that my brother said I "have been crippled in more ways than [I] know," called our entire family self-absorbed, and referred to me as a patient that he "failed." I have never and will never be a patient to him. I will always be his sister who saw him grow up, experienced a similar childhood, and watched him struggle and rebound many times. I do not look for him to save me. I don't really ask anything of him except for him to listen and maybe sometimes validate things from our childhood. I have a therapist. I don't need his biased psycho-analyzation of me.

Spending limited time with him over the holidays and reading his blog has reminded me that he does not listen objectively. He asserts many things about me, like he knows me better than I know myself because I am so repressed. For years, he has told me that he believes my depression is because I am a repressed lesbian. I am not against this idea. In fact, I have spent the last couple of years trying to be really open to such an idea. The truth: I connect best with women, but the idea of being sexual with one is not appealing to me in this moment. I am not closed off to the idea that maybe one day I will meet a woman I fall in love with. I don't ever want this to be an "I told you so" sort of thing. I am just saying, as of now, I like guys. I have a problem being emotionally connected with them, which is why I have a lot of flings instead of relationships. The truth is he knows next to nothing about my dating experiences. Whatever, maybe one day, I will decide to date a woman. Until then, I'm going to continue dating guys and trying to make sex and relationship stability coexist.

Lastly, I want to address the fact that he claimed he had the worst experiences growing up (out of my siblings) and handled them best. Maybe he is right, but both are subjective. He had a rough time, but at least he had the fact that he was male and anger was an acceptable form of rebelling for him. He was able to use his anger to hurt those hurting him and protect himself in ways that I did not. Plus, we all experience things differently. Who is he to pretend to understand or compare his hardships with anyone else? Being a child is to be vulnerable. Everyone experiences being wronged as a child and not having the skills to understand that they are not being treated properly. Growing up has a sort of jadedness and pain to it. As of now, I am not going to publicly address how I feel about events in my childhood. I will say that it was not perfect and that it sometimes reacts with my chemical imbalance to cause even more severe depression. However, I am not downright blaming my parents and I believe they did and always will love me. I am thankful for that.

Wake Up!

I just bought the new John Legend and the Roots album "Wake Up!" It is all covers from the sixties and seventies about issues of social and political importance. I'm so glad I went out and bought the album instead of downloading it from itunes. Not only is it cooler to have the actual CD and CD case, but the booklet has cool reflections on what they are trying to do with this album, and how our generation is so apathetic and our musicians (I think they are targeting pop and hip-hop) aren't saying anything about initiating change. They include a quote from Nina Simone, "it's the job of an artist to reflect the times." The album was first thought of after Obama's presidential bid. They've been working away, uncovering old protest soul, and they came up with this album. I think it's a great way to introduce social justice to a new generation that needs to wake up.

Speaking of waking up, I have a really hard time getting out of bed every day. I sleep ten hours a night, and I never feel rested. I go to the doctor tomorrow, so we shall see what happens.

I'm sitting here with wet hair even though I have class in half an hour, which means I need to leave in fifteen minutes, yet I'm blogging. It's warm enough I can just put my hair up or wear a hat for this class and do my hair after class. Today is a day I don't care what I look like. I am wearing jeans and a t-shirt, no make up, and I'm sporting wet hair. I like having these days once in a while. Days where I'm just naturally me. It makes me want to sip tea and journal all afternoon, but instead I have class, a break, class, and then a meeting. Talk about creatively stifling.

I heard this awesome author speak about his book. He talked about how sometimes you have to sacrifice for your writing--even if that means not necessarily giving 100% to school. He went to Central for his MA before getting his MFA. He recommended I consider it, if I can get it paid for because that will buy me two extra years to just write and work on a book. Then, I will get some teaching experience and possibly be able to get into an even more competitive MFA program--where I could then put the finishing touches on a book to publish. I'm considering it.

I've been reading lots of poetry, which is nice. It always makes me more observant of little things. A friend of mine and I e-mail each other poems back and forth, which is always a nice surprise. I love that horses one I posted. The images are amazing. I am looking forward to presenting it to my class on Thursday. I get ten minutes to talk about the technique, lines, sounds, etc... basically I just get to gush over how much I love it.

I don't have much more to say, and I need to go to class, but I would much rather sit here, reflecting. Ugh the life of a student.

Crisp Night Breezes

I think I'm sick. Exams seem to do that to me. I get to sleep in tomorrow, though. I'm looking forward to it a great deal. It's weird for me to think that I will be sleeping in as much as I want in a week. I can't believe summer is already here. Today I thought back to a summer memory of making breakfast with my writer's group early one Saturday morning and walking to the farmer's market. I thought, "wow, I am looking forward to doing that again this summer." Then I realized, my summer begins this weekend, and it will not be long before the farmer's market opens. This memory seems so recent, but it was almost a year ago. Time is so strange.

I've been reflecting on the process of getting to know someone lately.  I don't like putting effort into being social and getting to know people, which is a shame, because I love when I do get to know people.  It never fails to amaze me all of the baggage people have. I've reflected on this a lot in the past year or two, because as I mature, people reveal more with me. For example, older friends, parents, or former teachers are more honest with me. I'm most amazed to learn about people's lives who I have seen every day for a while and, sort of, taken for granted--because I am wrapped up in my own life--so I don't think much about theirs. A huge example of this is teachers or professors. They put up this professional front and it's easy for me to forget that they have histories, which involve tragedies I can't even imagine. It's so cool to be reminded of everyone's humanity. It reminds me why life is beautiful. It's easy to forget and get caught up in the struggles, but really, we are all connected. We have unique experiences, but feel the same human emotions. Why are we not more compassionate toward one another?

I say "so" a lot. I don't realize it until it shows up in my writing. I begin writing conversationally and one time lisa noticed that I used the words "so" and "beautiful" like ten times throughout one essay (it was a first draft, of course). She likes to make fun of me, and describe everything as being "so beautiful."  I had the thought to go back, and delete some of them above, but the whole purpose of a blog is to be conversational, right? I guess, Adam does more academic and topic specific posts, and Jordan does songs, but mine is just rambling. I always thought rambling was bad, but my writing professor recently told me I need to ramble a little more in my essays. That's what non-fiction is about--connecting ideas that aren't necessarily blatantly connected in real life, finding deeper meaning in everyday situations. 

I went to coffee with a friend from my writing class, and we ended up hanging out for four hours. How does that happen? He's into sci-fi, so I usually can't connect with sci-fi writers, but he is just as passionate about writing as I am, and he isn't socially awkward like the stereotypical sci-fi writer--so it's cool to have someone to talk about writing with. For example, only with a writer can I look up at the dark sky and say, "I like crisp night breezes," and not be laughed at for randomness.

I feel like I had something insightful to blog about. I was inspired after my four hour conversation, but I'm so tired (there's "so" again) that I can't follow my train of thought. At least, I'm blogging again. It's nice. I feel like it helps center me a bit, because it forces me to do free-writes. I just sit down and type what comes to mind. I'm supposed to do this kind of thing everyday as a warm-up for writing, but I don't have the time. This summer, I will both blog and write more regularly. I'm not just saying that either. Last summer I wrote a ton...enough to keep me ahead in my writing class all semester. I will do that again... This got long for a ramble. Oh-and I intend to post more cool quotes as the summer gets here. I need to go back over a lot of my favorite books and underline my favorite things for writing models. I'm sure I'll find good quotes in the process--those writers are insightful folk.

Growth

Today I found all three of my journals from trips to South Dakota. They are always short, because we stay so busy on the reservation. I am glad Jon makes us keep a journal while we are there, because I don’t know that I would have made time to write my first trip. It is so fascinating to see how I grew from trip to trip. The South Dakota trips were a huge part of my coming into my own identity. I don’t think that I would have been a different person if I had not gone, but I do think they helped me realize who I was at a faster rate. I am not claiming to know entirely who I am, and I don’t know that I ever will. I had a conversation with a friend of mine in her mid twenties up at school, and when I told her I still had a hard time understanding who I am she said, “I’m twenty-five and I still struggle with that.” We began reflecting on self-awareness, and I don’t know that there is ever a stopping point. It coexists with growth, because it never stops completely.

I think the South Dakota trips helped me push aside any feelings I felt of depression, because they would jump-start my spirit again. Even as I reflect on them now I can’t help but feel some of the power they made me feel. If it were not for the South Dakota trips, then I probably wouldn’t have became friends with Drew, which means I probably wouldn’t have ran cross country. I would have never met April, who has influenced my life in too many ways to mention. If I didn’t meet April, then I would not be friends with Adam. Adam is my first peer that understands and encourages my spirituality, and I have needed someone my own age to do that for so long. If I had not gone to South Dakota, then I would not have met Ryan who is extremely supportive of my writing and is always someone I can message about a new book or spiritual idea. If I would not have gone to South Dakota, then I don’t think I would like Jon or even think about keeping in touch with him. I am thankful for all of these relationships and my life would be very different without them.

I am going to include some excerpts from the three journals. A lot changed from journal to journal, but I also noticed I had many of the same struggles and feelings throughout them. I also noticed plenty of symptoms of depression that I didn’t recognize then.

August 12-18, 2004 (TRIP #1)
8-13: Night Prayer
“I noticed when I met individuals [on the reservation] they would look down as if to shake my hand, but they would not make the first move. It was almost like they didn’t want to be rejected. When they saw me extend my hand they would always smile. It made me feel honored to meet them.”

Here is a poem I wrote at Wounded Knee. I was only 16 (and it shows). I like the last two lines though and it is enough for me to remember what I felt and where I was.

I am sitting above people superior to me.
It’s not fair the way things happen.
They were so proud, strong, wise, and young.
The wind touches my cheek like it is comforting me.
I listen carefully, hoping for advice.
I can feel the presence of their spirits.
It makes me realize the lack of mine.
8-20-04
“It is hard to explain how I feel regarding this trip. I felt so uncomfortable and stepped so far out of my comfort zone. I think that helped me grow yet it separated me from my friends here. It makes me feel alone.”

March 29-April 3, 2005 (Trip #2)
3-30
“I have mixed emotions right now. I really don’t want to be pessimistic, but I do not feel like I am making a difference at all. I see so many teenagers that seem to be in defense mode against us. That is improving, but we are not here enough to help them face everything they struggle with or for them to relate to us…Everyone here has such different motives. I know we all want to help, but I can’t help but wonder, are we all selfish? I know we are not better than any of the people we are helping yet they suffer so much. It makes me feel very guilty.”
4-1
“Experiencing nature by hearing the wind on the rocks, the birds all around, and just inhaling the pure, fresh air was nice. It felt very spiritually cleansing, although I still do not feel the spiritual strength I am hoping to accomplish. I pray that tomorrow will go well and I will become stronger in my faith.”

August 1-7, 2006 (Trip #3)
8-2
“I am once again struggling with my faith. I am sitting in the exact same room where I was writing about fighting for my faith two years ago. A tremendous amount has changed, but I am still struggling in the same way. This time I can communicate my struggles better, though.”
8-3 (At Wounded Knee)
“I am at the left foot of Lost Bird’s grave. The breeze is hitting my left cheek, as well as my back. I feel numb to all of this. I don’t feel happy, but I don’t really feel sad like I have in the past. Sue is playing her flute and it is calming. I am thinking about Mimi, and I don’t feel fully present in the moment. I feel like I need to breathe to take it all in. The wind is blowing dust in my eye and I keep getting lost in my selfishness. Life is tragic. When I look at someone’s gravesite I like to imagine what their life was like when they were happy. I often wonder what made them laugh. When I look out at the hills I feel unreal. It’s like I don’t exist. I think that is what death will feel like. It’s not a bad feeling. I kind of like it.”
8-6 (Closing Night Prayer)
“This week I was reminded what it feels like to be alive. I was so numb and almost in a state of weird depression. I came to understand that I can be articulate and strong. I was also reminded of my spiritual doubt and trust issues…I forgot what it feels like to be in an environment where people really do care about my spirituality…I was reminded that I do need people, but I can stand alone.”