The "Family"

Looking at both sides of my parentage is like looking at a dead tree still watering itself. And un-amazingly so, I am the very black sheep of both. My mother's side is the zealots and my father's side is the travelers.

Both with pasts so dark, tangled, and twisted that denial and anger are common and comfortable dishes served everyday. As a child I was a pleaser and very soft hearted when it came to living creatures both insect and fuzzy. These two beautiful traits where easy targets for my family members. The rules always changed and good was never quite good enough. Praise was rare and sprinkled with but it could be betters or your half-siblings, cousins, my friends kid did it like this's. In the whole of my childhood something always felt off, something always felt simply wrong all the time. Dad and mom where masters of saying something then doing another. If they weren't fighting each other it was somebody else, but rarely did they fight together. I seemed to be instantly born with a distrust of people, their words and even their actions. There were other issues I had that I didn't know I had until I got older, things that parts of my family still do not believe in despite the world today.

First Politics

Ah the political realm, how early it shapes our lives. And how much it shapes our lives whether we're apart of it or not, whether we're political or not. My first political memory was of President (Bill) Clinton getting off of a plane. I didn't think much of it then because, well I was always told that I didn't know much of anything. Then came the election of Bush and I hoped he'd win because thats what my parents were for. But in my youngest years, deep at heart I was a liberal. In those days I believed that every person on the earth was simply in the way of the earth. Animals were more important, plants were more important, and even myself could be wiped away so the planet could have it's peace back. At that time I also believed in abortion and loss of gun rights, as well as a strong sense of feminism. I won't sit here and say I was stupid or wrong for my past preferences, but I will say they were misguided. The same is true for when I went in the completely opposite direction with my political affiliations. My heart was enacting too big for God's purpose of this earth, either way. However, it did give me two, although crumbling, foundations for my current beliefs today. 

First Walk

My very first walk with God wasn't traditional by any means. In fact, looking back I didn't realize that's what I was even doing. You see in my family God was only in church or wasn't to be believed in at all. One side of my family believe to an almost zealotous degree. The other side thought it was hogwash and fairytales meant to scare people into heaven by sending them to hell. As a child I would spend as many of my days outside as I could. We were  blessed enough that we had a big backyard shielded from the rest of the city by trees, shrubs, and on one side our neighbors big privacy fence. I would walk around all the haphazard flowerbeds or sit and watch the world around me. I daydreamed a lot and then, like most children, believed in magic. A part of my mind thought I could here the wind speaking and I would sometimes talk to the plants and bugs around me. Little did I know that these were my first real interactions with God. That voice on the wind comforted and encouraged me when there was none else to be had.