I had a long talk with new friend 
I wrote a long long essay about it but in the end I decided that I didn’t really feel like it was the time or place to share it. So I rewrote it here, leaving out the parts I didn’t feel like sharing.
I subconsciously resent people who I share an ancestry with. I don’t like how they’ve clung so tightly to victim mentality and fail to empathize or care about others on similar situations to them. I feel great shame at the fact that we are taught to feel that no matter how far we come and no matter what level of success or wealth or security we attain that we are victims. We always focus on all the wrong that’s been done to us.
I know it was hard. I know my ancestors suffered. But if we don’t move on, history will only repeat itself.
It’s not all shame...Part of my feels proud of my grandfather, who was one of the few to fight for freedom in the woods of Poland. I feel proud to be “more than just an American”. I appreciate how as a boy I was encouraged to pray without much instruction on how. I was given Hebrew words to recite as a child during services and I thought. “God sees everything right? I’m sure he speaks English too, and can read my thoughts, so I guess I’ll do this my way”. I appreciate that opportunity and the beautiful temple and beautiful choir that helped me hold on to that meditative state when I was just a kid. I showed up maybe 3 times a year but that was enough.
I was never welcome in that community though. My ideas were too radical. I was against dogma, and that never seemed to bother them much...but my desire to empathize or to at least understand those who hated us...they couldn’t handle that. My refusal to consider some people evil, to fear people who saw me as “other” always made them angry. They didn’t appreciate my strong interest in other faiths either.
But mostly it was just this culture of survivors guilt and victim complexes that led to superficial values. I know there are many exceptions, I just never connected to any. The whole concept of my roots just felt like it tied me down needlessly.
Two nights ago I tried praying to my grandparents to know them better and to make peace with them and was shocked at my own emotional response to such thoughts. If my own relatives came to me in a dream to give me advice, I’d doubt what they had to say and feel no joy to see them. I don’t really want anything to do with them. They feel more like heavy weights to me than any source of power or support.
They weren’t horrible people, they never did anything bad to me or anyone as far as I know. My fathers mother was sweet. He never spoke of the men he was forced to kill for his own survival. He was a decent man but he suffered a lot, silently I wish he had opened up to someone. He died when I was young. My father’s mother grew up with more safety and security, but there was no joy in her. Thinking about her makes me feel the worst. My other grandfather was difficult and put his family through hell. He was bullied as a poor immigrant and seemed to take a lot of that out on his family in little ways, while meanwhile providing for them and making sure they could live a life better than his.
Not bad people. I don’t know why I feel nothing for them except awkwardness and slight resentment.
The only one I could honestly feel joy towards is my one cheerful grandparent, my mothers mother who was too silly and scatterbrained to be upset about anything. She’s an artist and a badass but I don’t feel any pull towards her either since we are always so far apart and she has other family around to take care of her.
I don’t Know if my feeling stems from them or the community and culture they were a part of, a community that beat the drums of their victim mentality and passed it on to their children and my parents passed that on to me. I’m still trying to shed it.
I feel as if I had the tools to do so much good for the world and to enjoy life so much more but that this virus that they left me had me running at 10% energy and left me broken in all kinds of ways that I’m still trying to heal.
I’m not sure what to do about this feeling, but I’m trying not to feel tied up about it and to just accept how I feel for now. I don’t know how to feel any kind of emotion beyond “meh” towards the three who are gone. I’m thankful for life, that’s about it. I’m glad they had a sex drive.
I don’t hate them either....I just don’t feel any connection to them other than the fact that I share DNA with them. I can’t even feel that as truth. It feels like I might have dreamed them.
Still, I feel a slight pull to the traditions of places that honor ancestry and so I’m keeping my eyes open.
I bought a book by Malidome Some from Burkina Faso. I’d been hoping to read his stories for a long time, he speaks about ancestry and the beliefs of his tribe which valued connections to ones ancestry. I didn’t get much from it but I like his perspective so I may read one more.
I’m thinking about reading the Old Testament to see what it is behind this silly label that my parents have given themselves because their ancestors labeled themselves that way.
I want to feel positive about this but the best I can feel is indifferent for now. I appreciate my mother who is learning to come out of her victim mentality now. I wish she could realize just how broken she was when she was raising me and how that affected me but at least she is trying to fix herself now, she’s been so incredible these past 2 years. I still don’t know how to reach my father. We get along just fine but I feel so much darkness in him and it only gets worse as he gets older. My mom is getting lighter and lighter but it doesn’t seem to help him.
One day perhaps I will clear this darkness in my family. For the time being a feel quite good about how much darkness I’ve cleared in myself.
