(no subject)
I'm not entirely certain where stuff like this all started me thinking. I suppose that it's mostly because of a conversation I had this afternoon with a guy I've RPed with a couple of times. We were talking about cultures and such things and the way people portray different characters when they role-play. After he left, I googled my family's last name on a whim, just to see what would come up. I used my dad's spelling of it, with the 'i' ending. As expected, all the results were Macedonian (though they are all going by the "Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" moniker now. I hate that.) Then I specified that I wanted images only. Still came up with 90 percent of the sites listed for hockey player Ed Jovanovski, which didn't really surprise me. But some of the other pictures that came up really got me to thinking. I started wondering if any of these people might be relatives. A couple of them look like my dad. Two of them were in Bitola, or from Bitola, which is where he's from. I wish I had pics of my father nearby to compare the two, but if my memory isn't messing with me or if it isn't just wishful thinking, I really think these guys might be uncles or cousins. Part of me wants to try emailing them. I don't really know what I'd say though. "I'm Vangel Jovanovski's daughter. (The American one.) Do you know him? Are you related to him? Does the name sound familiar to you at all?" I guess I'm just scared that I'll probably get the same reaction from them as I have from anyone in the States that my brother or I have tried to contact about our father since he died. Because we're half-American and our dad was married to his first wife when we were born, we're not really talked about. To put it more bluntly, we're blacklisted, disowned, disavowed and all that other good stuff. My dad died when I was 11 years old. I barely knew anything about him or his family. I remember a lot, but comparitively, I just feel like I don't KNOW much. I guess what I really want is someone to tell me what he was like before he came to America. What kind of stuff did he do as a boy? What kind of student was he? Did he play sports? I know he worked and lived on a farm of sorts, but I don't know what his address was or where he lived other than just "Bitola". I have aunts and sisters and stuff on my mom's side who told me about her all the time. Plus, since she didn't die till I was seventeen, I got to know her better than I did my dad. But I don't have anyone to tell me what my father was like other than what I remember of him. I wouldn't say I want things to be validated. I know what kind of a person he was, I know who he was, I just want to know more about what kind of person he was. I want to know stories about how he got into trouble or acknowledgements he got. I want to know what he did when he fought in Yugoslavia's wars. I want to know about the land he lived on and what it was like for him. I want to know about where he went to school, where he went to church. I can't get ahold of hardly anything here. I don't speak enough Macedonian to communicate with the record people overseas, so I just feel really... stuck.
I believe that the seeking for this kind of knowledge and such is a big reason that I don't want to change my name when Phillip and I get married. I'd like to do that for him, because I know it would mean a lot to him. But I also know that unless I absolutely will have no regret about doing so, I'm not going to do it. It's not about 'women's equality' or anything like that for me. It's not that I believe the name change shows 'ownership' or whatever. It's just the only permanent, solid, outward thing that I have to tie me to my heritage, my family. I think that for the most part, people might understand that on the surface. But in all honesty, I get the feeling that it's just not a big deal. It'd be nice to be understood in that regard, but I don't need it or really expect it. I don't know if I'll ever change my way of thinking about that. But whether I do or not, I still wish I knew more about my father's background.
I believe that the seeking for this kind of knowledge and such is a big reason that I don't want to change my name when Phillip and I get married. I'd like to do that for him, because I know it would mean a lot to him. But I also know that unless I absolutely will have no regret about doing so, I'm not going to do it. It's not about 'women's equality' or anything like that for me. It's not that I believe the name change shows 'ownership' or whatever. It's just the only permanent, solid, outward thing that I have to tie me to my heritage, my family. I think that for the most part, people might understand that on the surface. But in all honesty, I get the feeling that it's just not a big deal. It'd be nice to be understood in that regard, but I don't need it or really expect it. I don't know if I'll ever change my way of thinking about that. But whether I do or not, I still wish I knew more about my father's background.