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There are a lot of little things I keep meaning to post about. Some are relevant to life as it's going.. Some are just.. thoughts that keep roaming around that I keep meaning to tell people.. observations.. realizations..
I had thought I might just make a bunch of little posts, but I think instead I'll just make one big one with as much as I can remember, and keep going.
Here goes. :)
I grew up in an odd family culturally speaking. Both my parents spoke Spanish fluently. Both grew up in Spanish-first speaking families. Even though both get rooted back into Mexico, each had different cultural norms and interests. My father's family grew up devoted Catholics (or at least that was what I was led to believe), and their views and perspectives were strongly based on the teachings and culture of the church. My Mom's family grew up in the other side of that piece where the paganistic leanings found home in Mexico where they crossed with the strong Christian culture and formed this amalgamation of beliefs that sit inside both those worlds.
Spanglish for the adults in the house was the norm when I was growing up. My sister and I were deliberately not taught Spanish as children because it was assumed that if we grew up multilingual, we'd be considered outcasts as they were, and that we'd have a harder time in life. That said, Spanish still played a part.. It had to.
I remember the strange idea that for my relatives on my Mom's side, my aunt was Tia, and my Uncles were "Uncle". And yet on my Dad's side, both his brother and his brother's wife were my Aunt and Uncle. My cousins were "cousins" but my godparents (and my Dad's godparents" were Padrinos. Grandmas and Granpas were in English.
Something else that made me smile recently, speaking of Padrinos. We would spend the occasional holiday with my father's godparents, and they each having grown up in solidly spanish-speaking Texas families had rather thick accents. One of the things we used to tease about was that my great Godfather would explain that something was ok.. or that things were going ok by saying that they were "pretty good". But through the accent, it came out as "poooty gooooot". One of our baristas at the hospital, whom is a little older and clearly of similar decent made me smile recently because she has the same way of speaking. I asked her how she was doing, and she told me, "Poooty goot". It brought memories flooding back.
It's odd... in that most of my memories of things when I was young don't revolve around people. I know just how broken I am and have been as a result of a lot of things when my favorite memories involve objects. It's been part of my quest to reclaim some of those memories by replacing those objects I've long since lost or that I would have to negotiate with my parents to get back. By replacing them, I feel like I get to disconnect the association of where they are from, and I instead get to enjoy them again with a new connection. It feels weird that I should want to do that. But it also is extremely joyful when I can. I say this having wandered Good Will last night looking at the Christmas stuff and finding a small pack with a few of the wood ornaments that I had when I was little. My parents bought this kit where you punch out the die-cut wood panel.. the ornaments were stamped with black lines, and there were paint pots included to hand-paint each one. Bit of a paint-by-numbers situation. We had an entire set. Mom probably still has them. I remember hearing stories of them staying up late into the night painting them to have them appear on the tree the morning I got them. Had a hard time holding back some tears about that last night. Christmas is a tough one. I have reclaimed a lot of things.. including my very favorite advent calendar, and a cute little train set that I got one year to go around the tree.
Christmas has been hard for a long time. Most of the partners I had in past didn't want to celebrate Christmas.. they had their own difficulties with the holiday, and while I had a deep passion about it, I knew that for most of my time, I was alone in wanting to truly immerse myself in it. Made it kinda difficult. It wasn't that I wasn't understanding of the hard feelings surrounding the holidays, but I knew it meant really repressing a strong part of who I was, since trying to celebrate something so hurtful for those I loved was not really an option.
I had kinda forgotten what it was to really celebrate it until about 7 years ago when I stumbled on a dear wonderful person who shared the passion I always had, and wasn't encumbered by difficult associations. It's been quite a thing.
More stories coming. <3
I had thought I might just make a bunch of little posts, but I think instead I'll just make one big one with as much as I can remember, and keep going.
Here goes. :)
I grew up in an odd family culturally speaking. Both my parents spoke Spanish fluently. Both grew up in Spanish-first speaking families. Even though both get rooted back into Mexico, each had different cultural norms and interests. My father's family grew up devoted Catholics (or at least that was what I was led to believe), and their views and perspectives were strongly based on the teachings and culture of the church. My Mom's family grew up in the other side of that piece where the paganistic leanings found home in Mexico where they crossed with the strong Christian culture and formed this amalgamation of beliefs that sit inside both those worlds.
Spanglish for the adults in the house was the norm when I was growing up. My sister and I were deliberately not taught Spanish as children because it was assumed that if we grew up multilingual, we'd be considered outcasts as they were, and that we'd have a harder time in life. That said, Spanish still played a part.. It had to.
I remember the strange idea that for my relatives on my Mom's side, my aunt was Tia, and my Uncles were "Uncle". And yet on my Dad's side, both his brother and his brother's wife were my Aunt and Uncle. My cousins were "cousins" but my godparents (and my Dad's godparents" were Padrinos. Grandmas and Granpas were in English.
Something else that made me smile recently, speaking of Padrinos. We would spend the occasional holiday with my father's godparents, and they each having grown up in solidly spanish-speaking Texas families had rather thick accents. One of the things we used to tease about was that my great Godfather would explain that something was ok.. or that things were going ok by saying that they were "pretty good". But through the accent, it came out as "poooty gooooot". One of our baristas at the hospital, whom is a little older and clearly of similar decent made me smile recently because she has the same way of speaking. I asked her how she was doing, and she told me, "Poooty goot". It brought memories flooding back.
It's odd... in that most of my memories of things when I was young don't revolve around people. I know just how broken I am and have been as a result of a lot of things when my favorite memories involve objects. It's been part of my quest to reclaim some of those memories by replacing those objects I've long since lost or that I would have to negotiate with my parents to get back. By replacing them, I feel like I get to disconnect the association of where they are from, and I instead get to enjoy them again with a new connection. It feels weird that I should want to do that. But it also is extremely joyful when I can. I say this having wandered Good Will last night looking at the Christmas stuff and finding a small pack with a few of the wood ornaments that I had when I was little. My parents bought this kit where you punch out the die-cut wood panel.. the ornaments were stamped with black lines, and there were paint pots included to hand-paint each one. Bit of a paint-by-numbers situation. We had an entire set. Mom probably still has them. I remember hearing stories of them staying up late into the night painting them to have them appear on the tree the morning I got them. Had a hard time holding back some tears about that last night. Christmas is a tough one. I have reclaimed a lot of things.. including my very favorite advent calendar, and a cute little train set that I got one year to go around the tree.
Christmas has been hard for a long time. Most of the partners I had in past didn't want to celebrate Christmas.. they had their own difficulties with the holiday, and while I had a deep passion about it, I knew that for most of my time, I was alone in wanting to truly immerse myself in it. Made it kinda difficult. It wasn't that I wasn't understanding of the hard feelings surrounding the holidays, but I knew it meant really repressing a strong part of who I was, since trying to celebrate something so hurtful for those I loved was not really an option.
I had kinda forgotten what it was to really celebrate it until about 7 years ago when I stumbled on a dear wonderful person who shared the passion I always had, and wasn't encumbered by difficult associations. It's been quite a thing.
More stories coming. <3