These things...

I have realized tonight that there are a few things that remain constant in my life...are they part of who I am as a person?...are they part of my life experience?...are they lessons I'm not fully learning and therefore cannot release?...why do these things remain part of me?

So what are these things?

1. My family.

2. Sadness.

3. Emotional eating.

Are these things connected? Probably in some ways...everything is connected in some way or another...every person on the earth knows every other person through seven degrees of separation.

Since I was eleven I have been sad. I knew even then it wasn't "the way" things are supposed to be. I knew I wasn't supposed to feel that depth of sadness pervading my life. But I did. I do. I always have since puberty. Is it all hormonal? Who knows.

One thing I do know is that my family always has stood by me. Through thick and thin we have been thick together. My family is everything to me. They make me all the good things that I am. They taught me to love, share, play, work, sing, dance, shout for joy, cling to truth, that its better to be kind, that its better to be honest, that its better to forgive.

I know today that I am nothing without my family. I know that they are the foundation of my life. That without them my existence would crumble into utter despair and remorse.

Is that what keeps me going? My family? Perhaps in the back of my mind they are always there cheering me on. Even in my deepest, darkest moments, my moments of alone...of afraid...of discouragement...they were there. I know it all sounds too good to be true. But in my case, it is not. It is all true. They are the most loving, forgiving, generous, truth seekers I know. They are godlike to me....they hold the love of God inside of them.

The family name Gifford is Scottish, and the name means "bold with fat cheeks". I know this, thanks to our 8th grade cultural project. But I want to say my family, the Perry-Gifford family also has another meaning: holding the love of God inside them (like the sea tortoise in the torso). I would like to rewrite that as my family symbolism.

I have come to that age where it is no longer wise, prudent, appropriate or even possible to blame my parents for my hardships in life. You know that funny thing we do when we are growing up and learning what it means to be growing up. We start judging our parents, they fall off those pedestals we put them on as children, when we knew they were the experts, the tallest or the smartest, or the wisest or the prettiest.

Then later in life, when we have our own grown up problems, we realize our hands are now as tied as their hands were when they were our age. We see them in a whole new light. Its like coming full circle. The circle doesn't stop turning though, it keeps turning through to another new circle of life. It is therefore, hardly a circle, but a spiral. It is ever evolving, as we are ever evolving.

These things I think about.