Usually I began my notes with the definition of my main topic, but in this case (I assume) we all know what Family and Support is.
Family can be viewed differently to an individual as well as support.
To me, family is a person’s foundation and sustenance. And usually when I think of family I think of the word support. Family is where you go when you need, or feel, or succeed. They hold you up and bear your pain. They help to maintain your livelihood. They carry you through your aches and hardships. They make you stronger and . . . bring you down?
Yes, although I started this note optimistically there is a dim side to some families especially when they’re not supportive.
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When I wrote and published my first novel I kept it a secret. My intent was to surprise my family with a great accomplishment of mine.
(It’s important to mention that my family consists of six sisters and one brother whom hadn’t been blessed with a positive role model while growing up.) Our lives were riddled with abusive and absent fathers, a single mother, imprisoned uncles, drug abusive cousins and friends; in other words it was a mess.
And here I am: the ambitious musician, the determined writer, the motivated painter, the medical assistant, the former straight A student, the perfectionist and overachiever here in a family where I feel like I don’t belong.
I feel like I don’t belong, NOT because I am better than my family, because my family won’t acknowledge me for who I am.
So after kissing the cover of my just printed/just delivered book, I hide it in a lock box (to make a grand reveal) and head over to my mother’s house.
I can’t wait to see the look on my family’s face and their excitement for me because I just published my first novel.
I pull into the driveway, knowing that they are expecting me, and carry my lock box into the house. My nieces and nephews are running around the living area playing and having fun, and there in the hallway I spot two of my sisters, my brother and my mom.
I open my box to reveal my blue and white novel with the title, Three’s A Crowd: The Beginning on the cover. (The cover I spent weeks perfecting and proofing.) Just to get looks of disappointment on all of their faces. Apparently they were speculating that I wrote a book about the family, and they were expecting to see a family photo on the cover.
What?
With the many hardships our family lived through WHY would I want to relived them, or write about them for the world to see and judge?
Why?
To this day my mother, brother, and four of my sisters have not read the book. Talk about family and support.
