In Which History Gets Dusted Off

Every once in a while, usually once or twice a year, the Genealogy Bug strikes me. Part and Parcel with my myriad of psychological issues is that I will obsess over something for a few hours, days, sometimes up to a couple weeks, before moving onto the next obsession. It's fun, you should be jealous. If I have to have OCD, I'm glad to have it paired up with ADD so I can obsess about a new thing each day...or week, as it were.

Anyhoobastank...so in retrospect, I feel like I have discussed this before, I'm not sure when. A quick search of my blog tells me it was the entry Without Shoes and Without Regard, in which I discussed grieving and the loss of my Grandma. You can read that entry here. That's right, I get real time up in this.

I've learned a lot from my family's history, if even some of that was contrived by my own at times hyperbolic fashion. (I may or may not have just clarified for myself today what the word hyperbole means and wanted to use it in a sentence)

Starting with my Great-Great Grandmother, the Matriarch of the Family, as it were. The stories throughout the family that I've heard, I mean, I can't decide which one I like better between my Great-Great Grandparents, who were the originators of my family in America, more specifically, Upper Michigan at first (before settling in Milwaukee, my hometown). Here is what is known as fact, with only little assumptions made (the hyperbole comes in later): Frank was in the Austrian Army in say the 1880s-1890s. The story goes, you had to have your draft card renewed, or certified, or updated every year. He lived in a small town in far southern Austria...basically a Sound of Music hike across the Alps from Slovenia...but at that time was probably part of the Tyrannosaurus Austria-Hungary Empire Rex...but I digress...and the bigger city of the area was likely Klagenfurt, or Villach, one of the two. Anyhoobastank, Frank's employer said that he would take his draft card to get certified and then bring it back to him. En route either there or back, Frank's employer lost his draft card. If you were caught in Austria at that time without your draft card, so I understand it, you were thrown back into the Austrian Army. Which apparently was the last thing Frank wanted, because he hopped a boat for America. I do not know where he landed, or even what he did from the time he made landfall, if you will, in 1901 to when he married Pauline (more on her in a moment), in 1903 in Iron Mountain, Michigan.

Pauline, on the other hand, was presumably 17 when she "made landfall" in New York City in 1900. According to my grandfather, there was a rumor (or otherwise unconfirmed story that perhaps itself might have been hyperbolic) that Pauline's father....well, wait. Let me back up a second and say what I know. Pauline's father was a traveling salesman, and he had another daughter two years Pauline's senior, who was already in America. Whether or not they knew where, I do not know. I assume based on what I'm about to say, that they did know that Anna was in Iron Mountain, Michigan. Here's the possible hyperbole: while it is true that John, the father, was a traveling salesman, what I am assuming here is his wife, Pauline's mother, died in childbirth. What I know is that she died and John was to raise Pauline as a single father in 1880s Austria-Hungary, as a traveling salesman. The rumor was he was going to drown her in the river. Nobody knows if that is true, but regardless, at the tender age of 17 she boarded a boat in Le Havre, France, headed for New York City, where she arrived on the scene in March of 1900. Census records taken in June of 1900 do not place her anywhere, and I do not know of her whereabouts at that time but picture if you will: you are 17, in a strange land, not knowing the language but knowing that somewhere in this expansive country (wherever Iron Mountain, Michigan is), waits your sister. The only one who knows you. Your mission is to find your sister, and given the sad shape of roads in the early 1900s, I can definitely see how it would take multiple months to traverse the Eastern half of this country to find your sister, deep in the coal or iron ore mines of the Northwoods of Michigan.

I think you can see where I embellish the story just a tad...but still totally plausible.

Fast forward 40 years. My grandparents are born, all growing up in the time of the Great Depression. One grandparent is living in a multi-family home, where many of the apartments are inhabited by members of her family, a large...and I mean Polish Catholic Large...family on the East Side of Milwaukee. One grandparent was born into a family who, at the time of the 1940 Census, was at least 1 year out of a job and was working for the WPA. There's where I'm concentrating now. My Great Grandma had to make do with a little to serve her family...and she taught my Grandma a lot, so I've come to understand, when she married my Grandpa. I even remember toys she'd make for me, 40 years after the Depression, made out of old wooden thread spools strung together, and rattles out of two detergent caps twisted together. She was a very resourceful lady.

There is a theory that states that some memories can be transmitted through DNA. I would subscribe to this theory, as especially from the period of time of 2013 to early 2015, I had to do just that...or at least a modern version of just that. One pot meals were basically a staple. Buttered noodles were a commonplace dinner. But we never went hungry, and we were never without the necessities. We just made do with what we had.

On the other side of the spectrum, I had a grandparent who lived with her parents and brother, who lived with the grandparents on her mom's side - something that hits home.

As I've learned in school doing some economics projects, is that the economy is cyclical. Maybe that gives credence to the "history repeats itself" mantra. It may not have obviously hit in my parents' generation, and maybe not in my generation, but for my kids' generation we have the Great Recession of 2008, and while it was in no way as bad as the Great Depression was, it still was a big economic downturn. But we survived. Just like our grandparents.

If I've learned anything from this economic downturn it is that frugality can save your family from the brink. You may have to make some unconventional decisions, decisions that other people will look at you like you're mad, but in the end - and this is the important part - with faith in God, you can trust that He will surely guide the way.

That's not to say I had perfect faith throughout this trial, or anything that would even resemble something saint-worthy. There were plenty of times that I wanted to (and sort of did) throw my hands up in the air (and not wave them around like I just didn't care) and ask the Teacher why this wasn't on the test, why such a lofty exam, like this seemed like final exams 2 weeks into the term. I knew (and still know) that He doesn't give us more than we can handle, but it truly seemed to be too much, and that's all I will say about that. Yet even through all that, the Teacher showed me just how much He is in control, and he took me on an amazing journey of faith in the process, something I will talk about in a future post.

The Teacher is always silent during a test...

However I feel like this may have been an open-book test, in that I had and still have, history to draw off of. The lessons of my forefathers, be it learned or transmitted somehow, find themselves in the passenger seat...wait okay that is a bad reference, because I was going to say waiting for my perusal, but it is not safe to read and drive. But I think you get the point.

Wake Up and Rise Above

Toxicity - Webster defines as "the quality, state, or relative degree of being toxic or poisonous"

Toxic - 1: containing or being poisonous material especially when capable of causing death or serious debilitation, i.e. toxic waste. 2: exhibiting symptoms of infection or toxicosis. 3: extremely harsh, malicious, or harmful. 4: relating to or being an asset that has lost so much value that it cannot be sold on the market.

The weird thing about intoxication is that it can be both good and bad. My coffee this morning is intoxicating (not literally, but a metaphor for being good, duh. I didn't spike it...although...that thought has crossed my mind, I won't lie.) Some degree of intoxication can be good, however most of the time people take it past the point of fun and venture into the drunk category. One reason (of a few actually) that I do not drink to get drunk anymore, is that ever-so-fine line between the two. I think to an extent with some people that must come with age. Speaking from a gonna-be 31 year old's point of view, it might be premature...but as my Facebook "On This Day" just reminded me ever so gently, I did do a brief stint in the drunken days...but I digress.

That's not to say I don't drink at all, just the other night I made the wife and I a strawberry banana smoothie with frozen yogurt and wine. It was delicious. And I do enjoy me an Amaretto and Sour, and a Moscow Mule, and I'm quite fond of IPAs (312 by Goose Island is delicious and yes I know that's not an IPA, that it is a wheat ale, but it's one of my favorite beers), but it's not an everyday thing, nor even an every weekend thing. I have my reasons for having no desire to get blinding drunk anymore, which I don't care to discuss here because I'm still too embarrassed by them and that alone is what fuels my temperance, if you want to call it that. Suffice it to say that if you have to be reminded the next day of things you said (and/or did), and you have absolutely no recollection of having said (or did) anything like that, you've had too much to drink. And to do that every time you go out...yeah that is my reason and that's all I'll say.

I'm not getting up on a soap box either, going all Carrie Nation (she's kinda famous for smashing liquor bottles at a local bar here) and preaching temperance to everyone, I'm actually reminded of a meme post from Catholic Memes with Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI having a rather large beer (think Das Boot) with a reference to a line in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. A quick Google search for said meme turned up fruitless but it doesn't take away from my point of I don't drink much. Which isn't even the point of this blog post anyway but as the subtitle of this blog should say, "But I Digress..."

Update: I found the meme:

And if you're wondering, CCC #2290 states: "The virtue of temperance disposes us to avoid every kind of excess: the abuse of food, alcohol, tobacco, or medicine. Those incur the grave guilt who, by drunkenness or a love of speed, endanger their own and others' safety on the road, at sea, or in the air.

All of that being said...toxicity enters our lives, and sometimes we don't recognize it at first. Sometimes it takes an unobtrusive third party to kind of "bring us to our senses", and to realize that some sort of toxicity has crept its nasty way into our lives. It can be a toxic family member or friend, using guilt or manipulation to persuade you into performing their demands at the risk of your personal satisfaction. Those with Stockholm syndrome will derive some sort of pleasure even while they are doing what they don't want to do, but sooner or later we have to take a moment to take stock of what we do, who we do it for, and why we are doing it. Either something happens that wakes us up to who that person or those people really are, or oftentimes that unobtrusive third party will put their two cents in that will ignite a spark to the aforementioned self-assessment. However, that unobtrusive third party generally can't be truly unobtrusive unless they know the intimate details of both parties, otherwise they are just getting your side of the story, and unless you are being painfully truthful, that story will always be tilted in your favor, even if ever-so-slightly.

That being said, even this tilted point of view that the less-than-unobtrusive (because obtrusive was definitely not the word I was looking for here) third party has, will almost certainly lead to points that you yourself had not given thought to, for one reason or another. They may be incorrectly founded, but at some level they are points worth considering. One being the occasional or sometimes recurring notion that you may not be as important to a particular individual as they are to you. On a more serious tone, there may be indications of actual abuse where you just saw harmless...whatever.

One "problem" (and I use the quotes intentionally) of an Aspie brain is being less able to detect people's true intentions. Simply put - you take them and their words at face value because that is what is logical. This makes guilt and manipulation a more powerful tool to the toxic individual because you're now easier to manipulate. Juxtaposed with guilt trips, you are putty in the toxic individual's hands.

Until you wake up.

In a seemingly unrelated but assuredly related segue, toddlers sometimes make the best therapists. You gently vent your frustration in the form of a singsongy story time voice and boom - save yourself a $200 therapy copay. "So-and-so can't find it in their heart to do such-and-such possibly minuscule-but-turned-mountain of an annoyance or otherwise timely detestable thing, and wouldn't you think after I did some altruistic thing they could do my <insert timely requirement here>?" Toddler's response: a non-sequitur-esque and joyfully emphatic "Yeah!" If that doesn't melt away your frustration then you my friend possess no soul.

And so, Aspie or Neurotypical, when we wake up, when we see for ourselves that toxicity has crept into our lives, we do as Miranda Bailey and Cristina Yang did in Grey's Anatomy when they were forced through obligation to their Hippocratic Oath to treat a Neo-Nazi white supremacist, and we "rise above".

An Aspie brain is a beautiful thing that must never be thought of as a defect or a problem to society. Some of the best things to come into this world do so through the minds of Aspie greats. Don't underestimate us.

On Self-Therapy

People make bucket lists. I actually came across mine the other day. I have it saved to my email, of course...my email has become my dumping ground for any and all of my latest ideas, wish-lists, recipes to try, whatever I seem to be obsessed with that day or that week that I don't want to forget...and then end up forgetting because well that ticker keeps going in my brain and then a squirrel comes by...you fellow ADD Tribe Members know what I'm talking about...

Let me paint a visual for you. You watch the news, and they have a little Ticker Tape going on, on the bottom of the screen, and they're giving you the news while this is scrolling across your TV like a Severe Weather Bulletin. For someone with ADD, add about three or four tickers on top of that, all scrolling different information, on top of the news anchors delivering you even more information. Welcome to a day in the life of me.

Co-morbid with the ADD is a touch of OCD and also Asperger Syndrome. I've learned to love it because I get to obsess about a different thing each day, sometimes in cycles for instance Family History. I'll go through spurts of about 2 weeks at a crack where I'll be hard core "Let's get a subscription to ancestry.com and research the crap out of our families!!" and then two weeks later it's onto the next obsession. Hence, a subscription would probably NOT be a good idea. But if any of you out there are willing to search for me...Just kidding. That would be boring for you.

I've learned through a short stint in therapy that writing my blog and doing my YouTube Videos is actually a good form of self-therapy for me…which is great because around the time my son Jax was born, I legitimately forgot to attend my therapy appointments. You must know though at the time, my mother was having Emergency Surgery to place an LVAD into her heart which she could have died from, although she did die twice in the ambulance from here to Milwaukee. Needless to say I had a LOT on my mind. My point—though my therapy sessions were working wonders for me, due to my missing (I believe) three in a row, my therapist subsequently dropped me from his care. Bummer.

SO...now you, the reader, can get a taste of life behind the veil of "someone on the spectrum"...I know I'm not the only Aspie to write a blog. I'm not trying to glorify it, or use it as a crutch, or make people feel sorry for me. I love me. I love learning new characteristics about me. And I'm blessed because I have people who know my quirks yet love me anyway. It's the epitome of the phrase "Those who matter don't mind, those who mind don't matter." 

You know, I started this entry talking about bucket lists and coming across mine...another case in point for an ADD Tribe Member...

I dare to dream. I like to think I dream big. I say this because there are those who when I say my dream either immediately try to shoot it down or lead me to believe "he's shooting for the moon, there's no way he can do that."...

I feel like I've blogged about that before. Here's to dreaming big.

I consider myself an empathic person. That tends to wear a person out. It's great to be an empathic person, because in my opinion the world needs more empaths...but at the same time, one gets so wrapped up in taking on others' problems that their own needs oftentimes get neglected. It's a fine line to walk being an empath.