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NaBloPoMo - My Family and Other Badgers
Jun. 4th, 2010 09:14 pmFriday, June 4, 2010
What's the first thing that pops into your mind when you think of your father?
It strikes me that lately I have been thinking a lot about where I come from, I thought it didn't matter. Who I was, I was quite sure, was contained in who I am now.
More and more I am reflecting on what it means to be part of my family, to have grown up in the little village I'm from...
It struck me the other day how absolutely unique to country kids my childhood was - from stomping about in the river all summer long, to peeing in the bushes of the nearest field when our ancient school bus broke down for the hundredth time that month in the middle of nowhere. And when I thought about this, as I sat on a Brighton and Hove bus filled with school kids, I felt glad in the deepest parts of my being.
And where all of that came from, that uniqueness of experience, is tied completely and absolutely to my family. On the most basic level my parents are to thank for my country upbringing as they decided to up sticks - and in my Dad's case, transfer his job - and move to the country so that I could grow up, as they had done, in a village.
For years I put pretty much everyone I was close to ahead of my family - my friends, partners, even the parents of partners and friends. But quite suddenly, after me and Ali split, I found they were more important to my happiness than I had ever imagined.
Most vital in this discovery was my Father's role in the weeks and months following my breakup. I found I was more like him than I knew. I found our lives were taking eerily similar paths at the same respective points. I found him to be wise in the ways of people and the world - a well of untapped wisdom just waiting for to turn the constant presence in my life and recognise both what I needed to acknowledge and where I could find all the things I needed to form a sense of who I was in the world and start forming an identity as who I was now.
I never thought that at 25 I would be reevaluating my identity and starting to add new explanations to my mental image of who I am and how I became that person but here I am. The biggest prompt to this...soul searching is the wrong word, it implies too much angst, but something like that...has been thinking about the people who made me who I am, the place that made me who I am and the ways in which all these factors continue to shape me.
So what comes to mind? Stability, warmth and helping me find a way to start all over again but do it in a new way. Someone who made me the person I am, and continue to discover.
Oh, and the man who subjected me to about 4 times the amount of his music taste as my Mum did (the first song I learnt was Yellow Submarine, taught to me by my Mum, the first singer I ever imitated was Crystal Gayle, go figure) which, after about 20 years of loudly rejecting, (but being quietly influenced by - my music tastes are guitar based indie, folk...) I suddenly realised I both loved and missed it. Which is why, tonight, I'm watching 'Queens of Country' on BBC4, singing along to every single song with an almost innate knowledge of the lyrics.
What's the first thing that pops into your mind when you think of your father?
It strikes me that lately I have been thinking a lot about where I come from, I thought it didn't matter. Who I was, I was quite sure, was contained in who I am now.
More and more I am reflecting on what it means to be part of my family, to have grown up in the little village I'm from...
It struck me the other day how absolutely unique to country kids my childhood was - from stomping about in the river all summer long, to peeing in the bushes of the nearest field when our ancient school bus broke down for the hundredth time that month in the middle of nowhere. And when I thought about this, as I sat on a Brighton and Hove bus filled with school kids, I felt glad in the deepest parts of my being.
And where all of that came from, that uniqueness of experience, is tied completely and absolutely to my family. On the most basic level my parents are to thank for my country upbringing as they decided to up sticks - and in my Dad's case, transfer his job - and move to the country so that I could grow up, as they had done, in a village.
For years I put pretty much everyone I was close to ahead of my family - my friends, partners, even the parents of partners and friends. But quite suddenly, after me and Ali split, I found they were more important to my happiness than I had ever imagined.
Most vital in this discovery was my Father's role in the weeks and months following my breakup. I found I was more like him than I knew. I found our lives were taking eerily similar paths at the same respective points. I found him to be wise in the ways of people and the world - a well of untapped wisdom just waiting for to turn the constant presence in my life and recognise both what I needed to acknowledge and where I could find all the things I needed to form a sense of who I was in the world and start forming an identity as who I was now.
I never thought that at 25 I would be reevaluating my identity and starting to add new explanations to my mental image of who I am and how I became that person but here I am. The biggest prompt to this...soul searching is the wrong word, it implies too much angst, but something like that...has been thinking about the people who made me who I am, the place that made me who I am and the ways in which all these factors continue to shape me.
So what comes to mind? Stability, warmth and helping me find a way to start all over again but do it in a new way. Someone who made me the person I am, and continue to discover.
Oh, and the man who subjected me to about 4 times the amount of his music taste as my Mum did (the first song I learnt was Yellow Submarine, taught to me by my Mum, the first singer I ever imitated was Crystal Gayle, go figure) which, after about 20 years of loudly rejecting, (but being quietly influenced by - my music tastes are guitar based indie, folk...) I suddenly realised I both loved and missed it. Which is why, tonight, I'm watching 'Queens of Country' on BBC4, singing along to every single song with an almost innate knowledge of the lyrics.
