My mother was 12 when she hitchhiked to California on $0.27, leaving behind a home where she felt unsafe and unloved. She was drifting for a week before my Great Aunt stuck her on a plane; upon returning home was positioned as a cheerleader and an easy lay. I never knew any of this, not ostensibly, but maybe in my bones, because I was 14 when I was first called a “slut.” All it took was one boy, truth or no, but the label stuck. The nastiest part was getting it out of my brain.
The French say "Plus ça change plus ç'est la même chose" - the English equivalent to "what goes around, comes around," but when considered literally, means 'the more things change, the more they stay the same.' Perhaps they're right, but we have no agency in change without awareness, and 'generational trauma' is relatively new language to describe conditions we all have been subjected to. I haven't seen justice for the men who hurt my mother or me, but I do see some eyes opening. Our Generation has learned what grandma brushed under the rug will be there for me to trip over, unless I clean that shit up.
The home my mother and father made was quite different, but we were on the move almost every 2 years until I was 12, and I never settled. I think about when I was 17 and my parents divorced, how displaced I've felt without having 'home' to return to. When I was 29, I moved across the country and married a man, trying to make a home from someone else's ruins. It’s taken me many years to realize family is chosen, and mine is scattered across the globe.
I’ve made my home over again here in Austin, and I may leave with a heavy heart, but I'm also aware it's time to make space for something new; to find meaningful work, and to give back to those who have always done the best they could for me.
ORIGINAL WORK COPYRIGHTED TO HYPE GIRL MEDIA
"Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson