Day 162 Question 162:

What are some things most people don’t know about you?

I would like to say that I am an open book but I really am not.  That is something that I just say out of habit when in truth there is a lot I believe people don’t know about me.  It’s not that I want to keep my life some big secret, I just haven’t really divulged all of my opinions and beliefs on people.  I guess you would say that there was never a right time or place.

I haven’t cried in quite some time and I have a feeling that the things I am going to open up about here might make me shed a few tears.  As a lot of you know, I meditate twice a day.  The type of meditation I do does not focus on silencing the mind but instead repeating a mantra and letting thoughts flow naturally.  Thoughts are going to come and go no matter how hard we try to silence them and stop them.  During these times of meditation is when I usually come up with ideas for writing.  I am usually flooded with so many memories and so many thoughts and ideas.  I am always amazed at what I think of and remember during these times of meditation.  My body is relaxed and my mind is relaxed too….it is this overall sense of being in a completely natural state.

Today, during my first meditation I started to think about my family.  I started to think about my life and how it has formed and shaped over all of this time.  There are several things that people probably don’t know about me.  I am outgoing with my friends and they know I love to laugh but a lot probably don’t know about my true inner self because I rarely express it vocally.  Sometimes I feel very uncomfortable talking about myself.  I can’t explain why…a part of me just cringes and just closes in at the thought of talking about my opinions and my life in general.  It is something I can’t quite explain.  It is the nervous part of me…the little girl inside of me that still pokes her head out from time to time.  The little girl that felt she never had a voice or felt that she was not quite as worthy as others.  I am growing though…the process has taken some time but it is definitely progression.  There are random things people don’t know about me such as: I have a full back tattoo, I believe schools should require kids to wear uniforms, I am a natural blonde (hahaha).

I debated whether or not to talk about a certain topic in this entry.  It is something that a majority of people that know me do not know about (or know very little about).  I have an adopted sister (and I use the term sister very loosely) that I have had no contact or relationship with in over 6 years.  My sister lives up in NY (at least I think she does) and I am in South Carolina.  We have not spoken one word to each other since attending my aunt’s funeral.  I do not hate my sister because hate (in my opinion) is a useless emotion.  My sister is just someone that I cannot understand in any way.  We share absolutely nothing.  Honestly, my sister has NEVER shown me any sort of love in my entire life.  She held resentment against me since I was born and throughout my childhood she let me know how she felt about me.  I have a memory of being 5 or 6 and it was night time.  I was heading down to the basement to play and halfway down the stairs my sister switched the lights off and I went tumbling down the rest of the stairs in complete darkness.  As I cried she stood at the top of the stairs laughing.  My sister was manipulative and just mean.  I never could understand it and I tried very hard to get her to like me but she never would.  I ached to have my big sister love me but for some reason she was unable to.  She looked at me and wanted nothing to do with me (luckily I had another older sister that I was and still am close to).  I have not seen or spoken to her in over 6 years and she has me blocked on Facebook so I make no contact with her.  I don’t know why….by no means am I perfect but I have never done anything to her to have her loathe me the way that she does.

I kind of went off the original topic I was planning to discuss.  My sister has two children.  My nephew is 18 years old and my niece is 10 (I think).  I have seen my niece only one time when she was 3 years old.  She would not be able to pick me out of a crowd and it saddens me to think of what her mother could have told her about me.  I saw a picture of my niece recently on Facebook and I cringed because this was a little girl that I did not know and I took notice that she was slightly overweight (not to be mean).  When I was younger I was “chunky” and my sister constantly called me a fat cow and made fun of me.  My heart sank thinking that she was probably saying the same things to her daughter.  I do not know though.

My sister is someone that I do not understand at all.  I truly believe she has some very deep issues.  I think she has mental illness too….what exactly, I do not know.  I wanted to write more of this entry about my nephew.  My nephew is now 18 years old and I think the last time I saw him he was 11.  He has been in a juvenile detention center since he was 14 years old.  I know he is in NY but I don’t know where.  I am not even sure where exactly my sister lives.  She has moved so many times throughout her life and has lived off of welfare that she could be anywhere.  By the time my nephew was 5 years old he had lived in at least 15 different places and didn’t even know who to call daddy because there was always a revolving door full of men with my sister.  She is remarried now and who knows what that marriage is like.  I didn’t even go to her second wedding.  I am taking a big step here by indulging private information.  It is something I have had on my mind for quite some time now.  My nephew is in a juvenile detention center because at the age of 14 he performed sexual acts on a boy and a girl that were 8 and 9 (I believe that was their ages).  His actions were SO wrong and yes he needs to take responsibility but I have so much anger at my sister because of this.  When this happened is when I shut out any type of relationship with her.  I completely stopped trying.  My sister is a VERY sexual person.  I may not have ever witnessed this but she is sick and twisted enough that I KNOW she had pornography on the television with her children around and it would not surprise me if she had sex in front of her children.  This is where I believe my sister has mental illness.  I question whether she ever did anything incestuous with my nephew.  It kills me to say it but I would not put it past her.  My nephew is where he is because of what he learned in life.  He really did not know the difference between right and wrong and appropriate and inappropriate when it came to sex.  His view was completely warped because of his mother.

I may have gone too far by discussing this but this story is a part of who I am and this part of my life changed my views on so many things.  I fight for human rights and for women’s rights because this stuff hits so close to home.  My parents are the two most amazing people in the world and they did not teach my sister ANY of these behaviors.  They did everything in their power to guide us and protect us and my sister has not done the same for her children.  She has rejected our family (she rejected me long before she rejected anyone else).  I spent a great deal of time with my nephew from the time he was born until he was about 6 or 7.  I miss that little boy.  He is now a grown man sitting in a juvenile detention center.  His mother and father have never gone to see him (they have only spoken to him on the phone).  He has spent the last 4 years worth of Birthdays and Holidays with no family or friends.  I do not know when he will get out or where he will go but I do know he will be a registered sex offender for the rest of his life.  His life was taken from him and it breaks me more and more every time I think about him because I don’t know what kind of chance he stands in life.  I wish he knew me…without being fed a twisted view of me.  I don’t know how I would find out his contact information but I do want to write him a letter (I would like to write my niece a letter too but I know my sister would get it first and I can only imagine what she would say or do).  I have thought over and over again how I wish I could bring him in with me and help him start his life over.  I want to teach him about the beauty in life and show him how valuable he is as a person.  My sister screamed at him nonstop as a child.  She detested him almost as much as she detested me.  My sister was full of hate and her own flesh and blood had to suffer the consequences.  My nephew does not know what unconditional love is…he doesn’t even know it is something that exists.  If I were to write him a letter I am not even sure how he would respond.  I am a stranger to him.  I may be the enemy to him if he takes in anything his mother may have said about me.

This is a part of me I rarely share with people.  It is a difficult thing to talk about as you can imagine.  My life has been molded in different ways because of this part of my life.  Although it is in my past it is something that still sits in m present and I hold onto quite closely.  I want to reach out but I am very scared.  I am not ready to start a war and I do not know if I am ready to endure that kind of emotional rollercoaster.  I have never had contact with my nephew and I have beat myself up over that for a long time.  I believe I am going to try to make contact if I possibly can….even if it is one-sided and only one letter.  There are so many family members that I do not know because of being spread all over the country and I hate that.  My nephew is someone I witnessed grow as a little boy and he has escaped my life.  In this journey called life I am still figuring out the right things to do.  This is one of the biggest battles I fight in my head.  I, honestly, have no desire to have any relationship with my “sister” but a big part of me wants to fight for my nephew…especially now that I have a much better grip on life.  I believe I could show him so many things and teach him about beauty and compassion and love….everything he was never taught or shown growing up.  I just needed to get these words out of me because I love my nephew with all of my heart even though we are strangers at this point in life.  I miss the little boy I knew and I want to meet the man that he has become.  Through all of his struggles in life, I still just want to hug him and tell him how wonderful he is.  I am unsure if that day will ever come and never did I think that something like this would hit so close to home.