full circle...

[stillcool]

or just circles?
the one on the left is my dad. I don't know when the picture was taken. There isn't very much I know about him at all, except he was never the same after the war. He was in the Merchant Marines (I think).
My mom died when I was around a year old, and I was placed in the care of one of my dad's sisters. Whatever information was filtered through to me is questionable. I was 35 when I first saw pictures of my mom. I was 45 when i learned that contrary to what I'd believed my entire life, she had not died from breast cancer, but from non-Hodgkins leukemia. My dad did not work anywhere and did not live anywhere. I never thought of him as 'homeless' ...he was always somewhere....usually the bar.
I know more about George Bush's history than I do my own. My mom's family goes back many generations in the same area, yet I know no one. My dad was one in a family of nine boys and two girls, and I know no one. Life was a shameful, lonely, fearful, confusing, embarrassing existence, for a very long time, for a multitude of reasons, or consequences. The ties that bind were so elastic..more like worn threads...but I held on for dear life...fearful of traipsing through to a netherworld, never to return. Eventually the threads broke, and the netherworld brought me sobriety and psycho-everything, and I've never really returned. Once in a while I find myself back there, not understanding or remembering how, or why I returned. Many back there are no longer living, but it doesn't make any difference. I used to fantasize blowing them up with a shot-gun...like skeet shooting...to get them out of my head. They come and go, but rarely stay for long these days. Today, I read an article about war and the shipping industry. Hi Dad!
When I consider my insatiable interest in politics, or the results of politics, I equate it with the search for truth. As though any morsel of any one's truth is a great triumph, and a noble quest. But truth is so flimsy, so fleeting, like a chameleon..changing in different light. I don't know if it's the constant shifting of the earth beneath my feet that makes me yearn for something of substance to hold on to as real. I know there is no there, there is only here, and that's just for now. If there were a God, I imagine this whole war thing were being provided just for me...to figure out me. And should I get it right it will all fade away. Sweet.

[librechik]

1. you got a heart--somebody knows and loves you!

how many of us have to rebuild our psyches from scratch after unbearable early trauma?

sad, but necessary sometimes.

Now you have a virtual family--an improvemnet over an imaginary one, IMO...

[stillcool]

5. thank you...that is so sweet...

[The Straight Story]

2. Truth and substance

Truth can be flimsy at times indeed.

We all search for it, and sometimes we find it and sometimes we find something we want to be the truth and make it so.

When my mom died I learned some things about her that were not always positive. But 99% of her life one could classify as being good/positive.

I did not reject the negative, I embraced as I wanted the truth, to know her ever more (my brother told me some things, he knew her longer than I had).

It is easy to know more about the history of others than our own families as others have thousands of people digging into their history versus just one digging into their own. But then too I have come to realize it is not my history that makes me who I am, it is the actions I take today which do so - but still I like to know, but now just for the sake of curiosity.

And yet - as you stated, there is no there, there is only here - there is a there that does relate. Our lives to date are a summation of past events, some which we directly controlled and some of which we did not (especially as children). It helps, sometimes, to realize that we are not as fucked up as we think we are because looking back we saw (perhaps in some cases) what led us onto the path we wish to leave.

[stillcool]

9. the article I was reading...

that brought my Dad back to life was this one...
The Saga of Hog Island,1917-1921: The Story of the First Great War Boondoggle1
by James J. Martin
http://tmh.floonet.net/articles/hogisle.shtml

it is the continuation of the cycle of war, and the knowledge of what kind of mind-fucking comes with it, that stokes my fire and makes me question sanity. That it occurs in every generation...that it is part of life..that everyone suffers...Nothing...makes it okay for anyone, yet on and on it goes. Bootstraps for everyone.

[Greyhound]

3. That is why it is absolutely vital that the true horror that is war must, at all costs,

be hidden from the amerikan sheeple. If they were to ever learn the truth, we would never again engage in mankind's most profitable venture. I was raised with this reality due to the long Naval history of my family and was quite surprised when I found that hardly anyone in this country knows this, but when I did, much of the psychosis of this country became clear.

The casualty rate of any war is 100%.

"What is, is" - Aristotle

[stillcool]

6. the pebble in the pond...

but those who don't witness the effect do not believe it's real, or can not contemplate the reality. Boot-straps...and all.

[jedicord]

4. My childhood was similar.

My dad left before I was born. My mom was schizophrenic. Both sets of grandparents died before I was born. I eventually became a foster child.

The sweet side, something that has occurred to me very recently is - my older sister and brother and me kept in touch with each other throughout the years.

This New Year's we spent the weekend together, with my husband and son, my sister's husband, daughter, and son with his fiance, my brother's wife and his daughter with her baby. Our family is very close now and growing.

While we don't know our past family history, we are creating our future family history. Life is grand.

[stillcool]

7. that's very cool...

I have an older sister. We didn't grow up together, but we're pretty close now. She's almost a mirror for me. Bittersweet has such depth to it.

[jedicord]

8. Do you find you have the same traits?

We are all three die-hard liberals (maybe your theory is right).

The strangest thing is we have the same mannerisms and peccadillos, especially my brother (who is 13 years older than I) and me.

[stillcool]

10. More like flip sides of the same coin...

our experiences led us to very different paths, but there are roots that seem to trump everything else.

[sandnsea]

11. Oh my gosh

My mother died when I was 1. My dad raised me and my 2 sisters, remarried when I was 3. I had no contact with my mother's people, just rumors and snips of stories here and there. Someone killed in a bar fight, someone in a mental institution, drunken grandfather, etc. My paternal grandfather's family was similar, I only heard rumors and have actually filled in more through relatives I met online than I ever did through my dad's family. Anyway, what is clear to me from your post is that my lifelong obsession with truth and searching for truth is due to the clear lack of truth in my childhood. Duh. Thank you for that! Hope you find what you're looking for.

[stillcool]

14. with me, there's anger that fuels the search..

and, because I never really was capable of expressing anger it's been kind of healthy. The parallels of the past and the present are freaky sometimes. I still can not understand the intent of the lies, and more, how I strung them all together and created a workable script. I do understand the mentality of a freeper though! They didn't actually tell me until I was seven that my mother was dead. How weird is that? I knew, kind of...but there's that crazy truth again...what did I know? Oy.

[marions ghost]

12. thoughts....

sometimes people who are affected by the kind of family situation you describe grow up with an extra sensitivity to the bigger societal picture and seek answers outside themselves as a way of understanding their experience. Looks like this is positive for you at this point. In so many ways the micro and macro are linked and mirror each other. You can find answers by paying attention. But a lot of people don't realize this and usually don't want to make the connection. Maybe it's fear of too much identification. They might find out that they have no real reason for their myopic feelings of security. We can all see that it's an impermanent world, but it's another thing to really know that at gut level. I understand completely what you are getting at. I hope that this whole grotesque shameful war thing has been provided for us to collectively look at where we have been and where we now ought to go. If enough of us can get out of the clouds of delusion and fear that are holding us all back in this country, maybe progress can be made.

PS Do you write poetry? What you wrote reads like a poem. :hug:

[stillcool]

13. wow...now that's rare..

thank-you for providing that glimpse of a miracle...my words can communicate...sometimes!:hi: