Wednesday, March 02, 2022

Filling holes

I think I’ve learned all possible variations of the word fuck…

I’ve been relatively quiet about the effect the war is having on me, personally.

A couple comments here and there, a lot of reposts of things that make me proud to be a Ukrainian, but not the soul-searching self important crap I post here.

Here’s the thing though - that fucking book, “Losing Your Parents, Finding Yourself”, continues to come back to haunt me.

(You know, the book I set fire to, that published bits from my mother’s will. Yeah, that one.)

So, about a decade ago, I decided to research my roots.

My father’s side is relatively simple. Maine, Maine, Maine, Maine, Maine, Connecticut. There’s nothing fun there to research.

My mother’s side, however? JACK-FUCKING-POT.

Being Ukrainian was sort of this odd… thing? I was a Ukrainian, but I couldn’t find it on a map, I didn’t grow up speaking the language, and I had very little access to the culture because my mother wanted nothing to do with it.

Then, of course, everyone started dying and I lost contact with the ones that were still alive.

So, there I am. Completely alone in the world. (We’re not counting my husband, nor his family. Not that it matters, I’m not close to his family anyway.) Knowing something is missing, but not knowing what.

Learning what it means to be from Ukraine, remembering the good memories and filling in the blanks with the social / cultural stuff I didn’t know… it was something.

I went full Ravenclaw. I out Hermione Granger’d Hermione. I jumped in and there was no looking back.

I started educating myself on Ukrainian history. I started taking Ukrainian lessons. I went to Suzi-Q. I went to Toronto. I hired a company to do the genealogical research for me. Then, I had them arrange a trip to Lviv and my grandparents’ village.

I had an identity again. A sense of purpose.

I felt like I belonged to a family again…

Even if I was born in the United States, I am the first generation that was born in the States. (My grandparents were born in Ukraine, my mother in Germany thanks to the Nazis…)

And just as all the pieces were starting to come together, just as I was getting ready to plan a return trip to Ukraine, this happened.

How very first world, yeah? Oh, no, that pesky Putin ruined my vacation plans…

But there’s more to it than a missed vacation.

A lot more.

I don’t know how to process this.

My shrink is going to have a field day with this next week…