Forums
New posts
Search forums
What's new
New posts
New profile posts
Latest activity
Internet Search
Members
Current visitors
New profile posts
Search profile posts
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
New posts
Search forums
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Forums
General Discussions
Family of Origin
Being last one left
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Scent of Cedar *" data-source="post: 674888" data-attributes="member: 17461"><p>In a way, I am in that position too, SuZir. My husband's family is very big, very loud, very different in the way they interact with one another. In having no family members there at the celebrations that are mine, I feel somehow an outsider, and lonely, though I also feel such gratitude for having been welcomed and included. For so many years, I could not understand what that feeling was, when I would have expected myself to have been so happy to have been part of the traditional celebration of a large, loving family.</p><p></p><p>It was like a dream come true ~ like that dinner I always used to post about. But somehow, during the midst of the celebration, I would experience a kind of piercing loneliness. I was shopping yesterday, and felt that same, piercing, almost physically painful feeling having to do with my mother. </p><p></p><p>So I think these feelings do not go away from us.</p><p></p><p>I wanted my people, then, and I want my people now. I did not have them, then. I do not have them, now.</p><p></p><p>This is an ongoing hurt, then.</p><p></p><p>That accounts for the poignancy of the feelings. I have experienced them so many times that I do not fear them. In a way, those feelings are my only interaction with my family, with the lineage and tradition of my family, that I have.</p><p></p><p>***</p><p></p><p>In the midst of the celebration with D H family, I wanted those faces that looked like mine.</p><p></p><p>I felt piggish, sometimes. I was surprised at myself. I thought I should be grateful to be welcomed as an integral part of D H family celebrations and yet, there was that poignant sense of loneliness. I had family, but...they weren't my family. </p><p></p><p>The faces around the table were not like my face.</p><p></p><p>There is just something about the feel of our people.</p><p></p><p>I still long for my people, for those faces, at every holiday celebration. I know people who have that. It is as beautiful as we imagine it to be.</p><p></p><p>So, for us, as we go through the holidays, there is an underlying theme of something poignant, of some lonely feeling we cannot identify well enough to address. It has to do with those faces around our tables, and with those we miss. Even if we didn't know them, there should be traditional stories, there should be some form of connection between the family that went before and the family that will carry our lines into the future.</p><p></p><p>That is the feeling of it, for me.</p><p></p><p>I have always felt that lonely place at the center, even when we had our children at home. </p><p></p><p>This helped me:</p><p></p><p>I have shared this story before.</p><p></p><p>After the holiday is over ~ after the obligations have been met, after the cookies have been baked and the dinners served and the presents opened, once the kids were in bed and D H had gone to sleep and once the house was back in order, I make a fresh coffee. I drink it, with cream, from a cup of thinnest porcelain that belonged to my maternal grandmother.</p><p></p><p>And I think about all of us, all the mothers of my line before and since, and what we may have hoped and how it all came to fruition, and I gain something that helps me put my own joys and failures and hopes ~ it helps me feel joined to the continuum that our lives are, whether the connections are solid and loving or disrupted.</p><p></p><p>Do you have a cup that belonged to a maternal grandmother, SuZir?</p><p></p><p>I will be leaving those porcelain cups, one to my daughter and one, to my son. I will be buying porcelain cups to be given to those coming in the future. I don't know how many, and I don't have the cups yet, but it comforts me to know I will send those things into the future for my descendants.</p><p></p><p>It connects me.</p><p></p><p>Knowing I would have that time once the holiday had been whatever it was, beautiful or chaotically bad, helped me address that silent place where I was lonely in the midst of celebration with faces that were not like mine. It wasn't that I wasn't grateful for their welcome. I am grateful, still. It emphasizes my loneliness to relish their celebration. This is a form of grief for us. As we go through our traditions, we are grieving. It is happening, at least it is for me, whether we can understand that or not.</p><p></p><p>The sense of connection with a maternal grandmother and through her, with them all, that feeling that I was drinking from the same cup she had drunk from, comforts me. That I will send thin porcelain cups into the future connects me.</p><p></p><p>Cedar</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I will begin thinking of my family of origin in this way, SuZir.</p><p></p><p>Thank you.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>It is difficult to find words to communicate the nature of what we feel. My D H loves me very much, but he cannot empathize with what I describe because his understanding of family does not include the concept of breaking or brokenness mine incorporates.</p><p></p><p>D H family argues incessantly about every smallest thing. Flowers, music, who did what and what they should do or should have done and whether one sister cooks the beans badly and the other does it right and on it goes. <em>That is what families do. </em>Every smallest detail of everything affects everybody and everybody has an opinion about all of it and that is what makes them family. </p><p></p><p>And that is why I feel outsider very strongly, then.</p><p></p><p>I understand the loneliness you describe in placing the candles, SuZir.</p><p></p><p>If we can find a way to connect ourselves to those who have gone before, and to those who will come after, we will come through it, I think.</p><p></p><p>This is a quote from Maya Angelou:</p><p></p><p><img src="http://imgick.nola.com/home/nola-media/width620/img/celebrities/photo/maya-angelou-stamp-dbf3ea8df2137665.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /> </p><p></p><p></p><p>I am trying to find for you the Maya Angelou quote about rising for the sake of the sacrifices those who have come before us made, that we might have the lives we have. I cannot find that quote.</p><p></p><p>But I found this one:</p><p></p><p><img src="https://weareallmeanttoshine.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/if-you-must-look-back-maya-angelou.jpg?w=652" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /> </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Your posting helped clarify these feelings for me, SuZir. </p><p></p><p>Thank you.</p><p></p><p>Here is something interesting. I have been listening to Christmas music when I can. There is, in many of the pieces, that same sense of poignant aloneness having to do with tradition that we are describing, here. This was surprising to me. We are not alone in our aloneness.</p><p></p><p>Isn't that something.</p><p></p><p>Here is the song, SuZir.</p><p></p><p>[MEDIA=youtube]E4aA_K2MF5E[/MEDIA]</p><p></p><p>Here is another Maya Angelou quote. Maya tells us how to face it, and how to be strong in the face of it. </p><p></p><p><img src="https://img0.etsystatic.com/031/1/8501874/il_340x270.627674772_f0yp.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /> </p><p></p><p>Okay. So that wasn't it. I found it beautiful though, and relevant.</p><p></p><p>Here is the one I meant:</p><p></p><p><img src="http://mypoeticside.com/wp-content/uploads/textimage/0f4d7224c2847269b930c778130404a9.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /> </p><p></p><p>I could not find the quote I was looking for, for you.</p><p></p><p>I will post it when I can.</p><p></p><p>Cedar</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Scent of Cedar *, post: 674888, member: 17461"] In a way, I am in that position too, SuZir. My husband's family is very big, very loud, very different in the way they interact with one another. In having no family members there at the celebrations that are mine, I feel somehow an outsider, and lonely, though I also feel such gratitude for having been welcomed and included. For so many years, I could not understand what that feeling was, when I would have expected myself to have been so happy to have been part of the traditional celebration of a large, loving family. It was like a dream come true ~ like that dinner I always used to post about. But somehow, during the midst of the celebration, I would experience a kind of piercing loneliness. I was shopping yesterday, and felt that same, piercing, almost physically painful feeling having to do with my mother. So I think these feelings do not go away from us. I wanted my people, then, and I want my people now. I did not have them, then. I do not have them, now. This is an ongoing hurt, then. That accounts for the poignancy of the feelings. I have experienced them so many times that I do not fear them. In a way, those feelings are my only interaction with my family, with the lineage and tradition of my family, that I have. *** In the midst of the celebration with D H family, I wanted those faces that looked like mine. I felt piggish, sometimes. I was surprised at myself. I thought I should be grateful to be welcomed as an integral part of D H family celebrations and yet, there was that poignant sense of loneliness. I had family, but...they weren't my family. The faces around the table were not like my face. There is just something about the feel of our people. I still long for my people, for those faces, at every holiday celebration. I know people who have that. It is as beautiful as we imagine it to be. So, for us, as we go through the holidays, there is an underlying theme of something poignant, of some lonely feeling we cannot identify well enough to address. It has to do with those faces around our tables, and with those we miss. Even if we didn't know them, there should be traditional stories, there should be some form of connection between the family that went before and the family that will carry our lines into the future. That is the feeling of it, for me. I have always felt that lonely place at the center, even when we had our children at home. This helped me: I have shared this story before. After the holiday is over ~ after the obligations have been met, after the cookies have been baked and the dinners served and the presents opened, once the kids were in bed and D H had gone to sleep and once the house was back in order, I make a fresh coffee. I drink it, with cream, from a cup of thinnest porcelain that belonged to my maternal grandmother. And I think about all of us, all the mothers of my line before and since, and what we may have hoped and how it all came to fruition, and I gain something that helps me put my own joys and failures and hopes ~ it helps me feel joined to the continuum that our lives are, whether the connections are solid and loving or disrupted. Do you have a cup that belonged to a maternal grandmother, SuZir? I will be leaving those porcelain cups, one to my daughter and one, to my son. I will be buying porcelain cups to be given to those coming in the future. I don't know how many, and I don't have the cups yet, but it comforts me to know I will send those things into the future for my descendants. It connects me. Knowing I would have that time once the holiday had been whatever it was, beautiful or chaotically bad, helped me address that silent place where I was lonely in the midst of celebration with faces that were not like mine. It wasn't that I wasn't grateful for their welcome. I am grateful, still. It emphasizes my loneliness to relish their celebration. This is a form of grief for us. As we go through our traditions, we are grieving. It is happening, at least it is for me, whether we can understand that or not. The sense of connection with a maternal grandmother and through her, with them all, that feeling that I was drinking from the same cup she had drunk from, comforts me. That I will send thin porcelain cups into the future connects me. Cedar I will begin thinking of my family of origin in this way, SuZir. Thank you. It is difficult to find words to communicate the nature of what we feel. My D H loves me very much, but he cannot empathize with what I describe because his understanding of family does not include the concept of breaking or brokenness mine incorporates. D H family argues incessantly about every smallest thing. Flowers, music, who did what and what they should do or should have done and whether one sister cooks the beans badly and the other does it right and on it goes. [I]That is what families do. [/I]Every smallest detail of everything affects everybody and everybody has an opinion about all of it and that is what makes them family. And that is why I feel outsider very strongly, then. I understand the loneliness you describe in placing the candles, SuZir. If we can find a way to connect ourselves to those who have gone before, and to those who will come after, we will come through it, I think. This is a quote from Maya Angelou: [IMG]http://imgick.nola.com/home/nola-media/width620/img/celebrities/photo/maya-angelou-stamp-dbf3ea8df2137665.jpg[/IMG] I am trying to find for you the Maya Angelou quote about rising for the sake of the sacrifices those who have come before us made, that we might have the lives we have. I cannot find that quote. But I found this one: [IMG]https://weareallmeanttoshine.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/if-you-must-look-back-maya-angelou.jpg?w=652[/IMG] Your posting helped clarify these feelings for me, SuZir. Thank you. Here is something interesting. I have been listening to Christmas music when I can. There is, in many of the pieces, that same sense of poignant aloneness having to do with tradition that we are describing, here. This was surprising to me. We are not alone in our aloneness. Isn't that something. Here is the song, SuZir. [MEDIA=youtube]E4aA_K2MF5E[/MEDIA] Here is another Maya Angelou quote. Maya tells us how to face it, and how to be strong in the face of it. [IMG]https://img0.etsystatic.com/031/1/8501874/il_340x270.627674772_f0yp.jpg[/IMG] Okay. So that wasn't it. I found it beautiful though, and relevant. Here is the one I meant: [IMG]http://mypoeticside.com/wp-content/uploads/textimage/0f4d7224c2847269b930c778130404a9.png[/IMG] I could not find the quote I was looking for, for you. I will post it when I can. Cedar [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Forums
General Discussions
Family of Origin
Being last one left
Top