hodge podge post

i can't believe how long it's been since i've actually blogged. i've highlighted a few things here and there, but putting words down has been sparse. i have been journalling and answering step questions for my sponsor, but blogging has been non-existent.

it will be for the next couple of weeks too. we leave sunday for the closest southwest airlines airport (5 1/2 hours away) and spend the night in town and fly monday to portland. we've got 2 nights there and then a week on the california border at my aunt's house. my dad's 5 sisters will all be there and i am guessing that this will be the last time i'll be able to be with all six of them together. they're all getting old. my favorite aunt had a stroke this past year, my dad isn't playing basketball with the kids anymore. he can still shoot and coach, but he told me today he's done playing (which shocked me and broke my heart) and the other four are all just about as unhealthy.

these five women are the last ancestral links (except for one maternal aunt) i have on the planet... they are incredible women. some endured very difficult spouses, addiction, heartache and trials of various types. they come (i come) from pioneer stock. i'm hoping to catalog and record many of their stories this time. we've got a couple digital video recorders and i'm hoping they can just forget they are there and keep talking. i'd hate to think that their stories pass with them. there is so much i want to know.

at the end of that week we have all rented two reunion houses on the pacific coast for 5 days and a lot of extended family will be joining us there. i can't believe how the details for this trip have fallen together. it really feels like a god thing.

i'm hoping to have a real heart-to-heart with my dad while i'm there. i so long to talk theology with him. he still holds so tightly to that old plymouth brethren mindset. i know it was special to him. it gave him hope when so little in life did. but i'd love to show him where it has hurt both of us. i don't think that patriarchy serves the male species any better than the female. only the alpha males who bark and bite really get to thrive in that environment, the rest of us just feel inadequate. i think my father has spent most of his christian life feeling really inadequate. the truly "spiritual man" that was held out had more of my set of giftings than his. that was the diabolical part of this. my mother and i were given the gifts he lacked and required to fulfill his ROLE in life.

it's such an ill fitting cloak and i have shed it. i'd really love for him to also. and if he can't just to understand why i have without labeling me as rebellious, as i have been anything but.

i am also going to tell him that the only thing i have ever truly wanted in life was for him to tell me he was proud of me. i had thought for years (decades?) that it would spoil everything if i had to ask for it, but hope challenged that idea and reminded me that anything worth having is worth asking for. otherwise it may go unfulfilled forever.

the most difficult part of all of this is doing all of it for myself and not for his reaction or response. i am truly walking into this with the hope that i am able to empower myself to break free of the restraints, real or imagined, that have kept me feeling captive to his approval and control. i long to be free.

i don't know what kind of access i'll have to the internet while away, but i will miss your words. if you think of me any prayers for our safety and this situation would be so appreciated. have a lovely couple of weeks!