It Must Be The Genes
Before my grandma passed away, my mother and I took a picture with her hands. Side by side, all of our hands looked the same: long, willowy fingers, prominent veins and wide nail beds. I've always thought my mother had beautiful hands, and as I get older, mine too are taking on the shape of an older and wiser woman. Of all my pictures, this is one I treasure most highly.
My grandma passed away many years ago, and I am comforted to know that I carry part of her within me. Each time I look at my hands and see how they are aging, I know that soon my hands too will look exactly as hers did.
The apple does not fall from the tree indeed.
I've been told my whole life that I have my father's mother's neck. I call it a chicken neck, because it is long and skinny, but people have commented on it for years. When I wear my hair up, it is striking. I have not seen my father's mother since I was 9 years old. But I would guess that if we were to meet, our necks would look the same.
I am my father's daughter after all.
I get my eyes from my father and my nose from my mother. I have my father's dry wit and my mother's critical eye. I am left handed just like my father was and allergic to codeine just like my mother.
I am a patchwork of genes.
Yet for all the things I can identify and trace back to a specific side of the "tree", my hair is something of an anomaly. No one, for as far back as we can remember, ever had naturally curly hair.
This intrigues me.
A gene manifested itself in me that goes back so many generations no one on either side could ever figure out where it came from.
There have been so many things in my life that I attributed to genes: perfectionism, eating disorder behavior, self-injury inclination and desperately low self-esteem. Some of these may be genetically based, but others are not. How challenging it has been for me to discipline myself enough to go through and find out what things I could control and which things I couldn't.
My hair, believe it or not, is one of those things.
To say it is unruly would be understatement. Most people have bad hair days, I have bad hair years. My hair is a weather vane. The more moisture in the air, the better it looks. But I live in Dallas, and we're just coming off of a four-year drought, so you put the pieces together.
I am getting older and starting to see more and more parts of myself that "came" from someone else. This comforts me to know that I have a background, a certifiable background of belonging to a group of people even if they don't know who I am.
I am still very much in the process of trying to figure out who I am and where I come from. I have worked so hard to create a new identity in order to cover up my destructive behaviors, that I lost sight of who I really am.
I feel like i am going back to the drawing board in more ways than one. With each new discovery, I am re-creating a patchwork of genes that helps to give shape to a person who for so long felt amorphous.
My grandma cannot see me. My father cannot see me. My ancestors do not know of the wonderful things I have done as their namesake. But they are within me. I see them in my eyes, my hair, my hands, my laughter and my behaviors.
I am not an island. I am the culmination of many years of peoples struggles and triumphs. What a humbling concept indeed.
My grandma passed away many years ago, and I am comforted to know that I carry part of her within me. Each time I look at my hands and see how they are aging, I know that soon my hands too will look exactly as hers did.
The apple does not fall from the tree indeed.
I've been told my whole life that I have my father's mother's neck. I call it a chicken neck, because it is long and skinny, but people have commented on it for years. When I wear my hair up, it is striking. I have not seen my father's mother since I was 9 years old. But I would guess that if we were to meet, our necks would look the same.
I am my father's daughter after all.
I get my eyes from my father and my nose from my mother. I have my father's dry wit and my mother's critical eye. I am left handed just like my father was and allergic to codeine just like my mother.
I am a patchwork of genes.
Yet for all the things I can identify and trace back to a specific side of the "tree", my hair is something of an anomaly. No one, for as far back as we can remember, ever had naturally curly hair.
This intrigues me.
A gene manifested itself in me that goes back so many generations no one on either side could ever figure out where it came from.
There have been so many things in my life that I attributed to genes: perfectionism, eating disorder behavior, self-injury inclination and desperately low self-esteem. Some of these may be genetically based, but others are not. How challenging it has been for me to discipline myself enough to go through and find out what things I could control and which things I couldn't.
My hair, believe it or not, is one of those things.
To say it is unruly would be understatement. Most people have bad hair days, I have bad hair years. My hair is a weather vane. The more moisture in the air, the better it looks. But I live in Dallas, and we're just coming off of a four-year drought, so you put the pieces together.
I am getting older and starting to see more and more parts of myself that "came" from someone else. This comforts me to know that I have a background, a certifiable background of belonging to a group of people even if they don't know who I am.
I am still very much in the process of trying to figure out who I am and where I come from. I have worked so hard to create a new identity in order to cover up my destructive behaviors, that I lost sight of who I really am.
I feel like i am going back to the drawing board in more ways than one. With each new discovery, I am re-creating a patchwork of genes that helps to give shape to a person who for so long felt amorphous.
My grandma cannot see me. My father cannot see me. My ancestors do not know of the wonderful things I have done as their namesake. But they are within me. I see them in my eyes, my hair, my hands, my laughter and my behaviors.
I am not an island. I am the culmination of many years of peoples struggles and triumphs. What a humbling concept indeed.