Half ass attempt at an update....aka, freewrite

[blasfemmey]

i am in school full time. for the first time in my life. i work full time at give something back and i love it. i am going to fail my english class. not because i dont do excellent work, but because of my grandparents

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[lizs18]

My Grandparents, on my mothers side were hoarders too. I remember when I was a teenager, and the farm that they had owned and my mother grew up on, was being bought out to build a mini-mall, we went to the house, that they hadn't lived in for decades, and had never sold.

The house was filled with stuff, and we were told we could take what ever we wanted, because it had been condemned, sold, and was going to be bull-dozed. I took a black and gold crucifix because I liked it.

There we found my cousin and her friend, living on a dirty mattress because she had run away from home and knew about the farm, and knew that it would be a safe place to go.

She is my Lesbian aunt's child, and Black, Native American and Latin, and Irish and French. She died in New Orleans, her body found naked in a ravine after years of being addicted to crack, and whoring to keep up her habit. I never told anyone in the family that she whored. She told me that in confidence, and I will maintain that, because she doesn't deserve the judgement she might receive from the rest of the family.

She was the oldest grandchild on my mother's side of the family. She was beautiful, she was smart, could play the violin and I loved her and looked up to her as a child. I still do. She is one of us that didn't make it out alive.

My mother is a pack-rat, and she was the daughter of a hoarder, her mother, who grew up Native American (Menominee) and French (by way of French immigrants to Canada who then moved to Wisconsin) and dirt-poor during the depression. She saved everything. While she was dying, my mother and my aunt, began cleaning out her house while she was sleeping. They found pictures of me that my Grandmother had kept, my senior high school photo, my graduation from college photo, and a picture of me when I was a little girl. I'm crying right now thinking about it.

After she died, they promised to send me all the Mary stuff that they found, because they knew how much I like it, but it hasn't happened, and I understand. I'm sure they were and still are, very overwhelmed. That house had broken and washer's in the basement from the '40's, and the upstairs wallpaper had been wripped to shreds and scrawled on, by all of her many children, my mother and aunts and uncles. It made my heart hurt every time I came to visit.

I know it's not a joke. I know it's not funny. I know it's not a movie or a TV Show. This is your life. These are your people. This is where you came from, and where you still have connections. You are strong and brave, especially because you are dealing with this head on and you are getting support and you know that being vulnerable is a sign of strength and that bravery means being scared to death and doing it anyway.

I'm so proud of you for going to school full-time and finding a job that fulfills you. You deserve all that and more.

Even though we've never met in person, I feel a love for you and a kinship with you, as if we were sisters who grew up in the same house because I know we come from very similar (not the same) people and have had very similar (not the same) experiences.

I send you hugs, love, healing energy, strength when you are sick of having to be so damn strong, and understanding. Because I get it. At least I think I do.

I mean every word that I said.