It's A Family Affair

"I want Destiny..It's the place for me,yeah, yeah, yeah - give me the simple life, I'm getting way from here, let me be me, come let me feel free, let me be me..I wanna get far from here, should I up and fly away so fancy free, nobody can change my mind, the words of Destiny are calling me...bout time.." - The Jacksons

I had to pull on some spiritual guidance before I began this post (Hey you got yours, I got mines, lol). Before I begin, in my adult years I have learned that stress/strife and drama are relative and unique to an individual. I have been exposed to and heard more horror stories about upbringings to last me a life time and residual effects that folks deal with every day. I am foreign to 99% of it in my life and upbringing, so no tales of gore here - however, my stress/strife about my family is mine and quite relevant in my day to day travels.

Sooooo here's how it's laid out. My daddy had 12 kids, my biological daddy had 3 - broken down farther, my 'nuclear' family has me and my two siblings - 35 and 33 respectively. I, however, have 7 brothers and 9 sisters all total. I am the oldest girl at 40 1/2 out of all of the kids. It's okay you can get your calculators and go on over to ancestors.com to figure it all out - hell I need to as well.

There is a clear line between the first set of kids and the second set of kids, as my father branched out into his activities. The first set of kids were scarred in a totally different way then the second set. Our goal was to get up and out, who are these women? who are these kids? why did my share just get alot smaller?


As an adult looking back on the whole situation, overall my issues are about fustration that it didn't turn out like I thought it would. We have no family cohesiveness as it died 21 years ago (my daddy). Once he was gone, the group fractured based on who their momma was and us older kids were out doing our thing and didn't look back at the younger ones sans my youngest brother who was born after my daddy died and he has been the most loved out of all of us. Don't nobody mess with my baby brother, lol

I currently have no relationship with most of my siblings. The two in my immediate circle have serious life issues that they need to address - I don't even have the capacity to understand what is going on with them. I can admit that my sista is an addict and my brother is very close to some sort of mental breakdown. They just didn't thrive out here in this world and it pains me to no end. The rest are scattered in the wind due to their own demons and the younger ones - have spite for us older ones and charges (which are true) that we deserted them. If I were to really be honest, there are exactly four out of the whole 12 that are 'normal' by todays standards. From my biological fathers standpoint - I just never really bonded with them. The next one under me, has no interest in meeting me or reaching out to me, though I've reached out to her; the youngest and I talk about once a month - it is what it is, she's young has three kids and is doing her thing.

When I was little, I created this whole family for myself. They had huge birthday parties, I had 25 cousins, they had family reunions and all kinds of stuff. I think about that sometimes as I pull them up to create again that family for myself. Mini-me knows some of her cousins but not all. She knows some of her aunts and uncles but not all. We don't do those things anymore on a grand scale. We did for a time. While I miss that in my life, on one level I don't - because it's always in the matrix, because my family can not and refuses to come real about our upbringing and the 'scars' of polygomy. There are some - my brothers are RUINED because of it. As well as, there is a failure of religion among the ranks and a great chasm between the old and the young and nobody wants to talk about that.


When you are raised in a household that is very religious, regardless of the faith a couple of things happen. You get out in the world and go wild for a minute, then you decide whether or not what you were taught works for you and if it didn't - you find something else, and if it did you might tweek it for your own personal spirituality. When you are raised in a sub-culture, it's a whole nother ball of wax. My personal gripes with the whole thing is that - I was given religion and structure in my opinion, but not alot of 'faith' or ways and means out here in the real world. I have been able to evolve some of my basic learnings in order to be able to deal out here in the world. But while we were learning the circumference of the planet earth - we should have been being taught about how to function out here in the world on a day to day - real world basis. If I hadn't of seen my mother working etc. etc. then I wouldn't have known. We all have no drive and no direction. Things like furthering our education, employment and the importance of it all - were not things discussed in our home. I had to change that up in mines and make it important. I had to change alot of things and create a normalcy in my home and in my life.

So where am I today? I am where I am. My 'cross to bear' is that - I want a traditional american nuclear family and everything else can move to the left. I have that and I am going to keep that. I don't want extended family, family given to me, problems of family or any of that. I want my house, picket fence, 2.5 kids, family car, two vacations a year. I have been rebuilding a relationship with one brother and we all are doing fine. It's a struggle, everybody gotta be on board and most of them are not - so moving on. I zone out alot, when it comes to my family - just become silent. I have reached out a couple of times over the years only to be rebuffed by some siblings - so moving on from that as well. At this point, when I need 'family', I usually just go hang with Janets.

As I continue to grow and make progress, maybe some of this will go away. I don't live in the past - but there is a mental photo album that pops up from time to time. I hope that one day we all can be one big happy family - but I'm not holding my breath...I'm not holding my breath.