Sunday, February 24, 2008
Vanished off the face of the earth
bu vs maine :: agganis arena, boston, ma :: february 16 2007
I’m alive. Just buried.
Wonder Hubby’s mom has “the C-word” and we’ve been on pins and needles for a while. Waiting for news sucks. Having people in denial/controlling things that aren’t theirs to control is just making everything harder. On the school side, I have a 15 page group paper due last week. Yeah. That good. A member of my group, one that offered to do the bulk of the work, has vanished. Poof! Gone! Leaving me and the other person to pick up the slack. Did I mention I have another paper due? And a project? And a job that keeps me at work until noon on Saturday, killing all my good homework time?
Yeah.
In other news, I took a stab at getting rid of a vicious green-eyed monster attack.
My heritage is Ukrainian and god knows what else. There’s a lot of people with my last name and I’ve not had the time to work on my dad’s side of the family tree to figure out what’s out there. But I digress. Almost a year ago (!!!!!) I kissed and made up with a very old, very good friend. Who happens to be 100% Latvian. She speaks it. She lives it. Her name drips it. We talked at length about the Old Guard of each culture pushing out the younger generation and how my mother failed me by turning her back on her heritage. Then, I ran across my cousin on MySpace. Some bad blood started between my aunt and I after my mother died and I’ve just never been able to forgive her for it… and in doing so, distanced myself further from my Ukrainian side. My cousin spent a lot of time with my grandparents, and both her parents are Ukies, so I know she’s had a lot of exposure. And it pissed me off.
Between the two of them, they created this strange jealousy. One is so entrenched in her culture that it comes up often in conversation. Like every other word often. And I want that. I want to know people who share my blood and speak a language I don’t (yet) understand. My cousin spent more time with our grandparents than I did and I know she probably managed to pick up more than she realizes. To be left out hurts like I can’t even put into words.
When my father passed away, I became obsessed with knowing where I came from. It was too soon, and the project got put on the back burner. But with the reappearance of both of these people in my life, that project started whispering in my ear. I found a place in Boston that teaches the Ukrainian language and the culture. I’ve actually been in contact and will probably start after tax season. There’s supposedly a Ukie contingent in both Salem (MA) and JP…at least there are churches in both areas. Yeah, I said “churches”. Big ol’ Agnostic me, is seriously thinking about going back to church. Not for the religious aspects - I turned my back on God a long time ago - but for the social networking. I know, it’s a frightening thought.
It’s time for me to do this. To find that part of me and embrace it. To never let it go.
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