I woke up this morning probably just about an hour before the festivities began. Living across a natural waterfall is something else with tourists always outside your home photographing this magnificent falls or even your 1860 Victorian home, or the fancy old antique cars my Dad owns.
Today is Memorial day. There is always a service held at 9AM at the falls. I can remember the days where I would still be in bed and the sounds of the gunshots were my wake-up call. Today was different. I just happened to wake up at 8Am to find my mother running around and heading out to school to do a little work on her day off; that's so like her! She never misses the service though. I thought Brittany was already at work but I found her coming down the stairs to leave after the ceremony was finished. My Dad and I had a moment where we were at the end of our drive way just across the street from the falls listening to the ceremony. It was a chilly morning.
After the ceremony, I was lost at what to do. I'm always lost... who am I kidding? I've been a lost child since birth for all I am concerned which produces this weird Trenton angst that I don't think anyone will or could understand.
I didn't catch his name but a Veteran gave a very nice speech which basically he made this statement of "Service over self" as the basis to the well delivered speech. Gosh where's my thesaurus! Anyways... It's something we can all work on - whether he truly meant in the context of military service or not. But he did speak of the men and women who serve all of us and come home from duty to catch up, support, love and to live with their families.
This home I live in is something else. It's just a very silent part of my family... in which I can totally sympathize with. I feel I don't have a voice within this family sometimes. It hurts, but at the same time it somewhat makes sense. After Church this Sunday, a woman came up to me and said along these lines " Well now that you've graduated, you can be your own person." I replied... "Well I try to be my own person at home. It just doesn't go over all that too well". She chuckled, but yes, that's how it feels.
I cannot foresee what will happen to this home. I wish it could be mine, or ours forever... and I am speaking of our behalf - Brittany and I. I worry sick everyday literally over the future of our family - our small family. It's just that this home is something special, despite our dysfunctional, obscure family as I see it. Who wouldn't like a bedroom view of a waterfalls, or the sounds of tumbling waters as you go to bed at night? It's so beautiful and majestic. I would literally have to fall backwards to keep it. Drop everything I'm doing to maintain it. I don't know how my 73 year old father does it. He's his own one-man show. And my mother won't be getting any younger, soon to be approaching age 59. I do love them dearly, and trust me I will be a mess when they are gone; I already am. I worry sick that I will be cleaning up after them, the good and the bad they have done in their lifetime. I'm afraid I won't live up to be either one of them. Is that normal? It's quite frightening to me and has failure written all over it. I would love to keep this home within the family but when I say drop everything - perhaps it will be a major shift of a location, an occupation that I have been busy with. This could ultimately change my hopes, aspirations, and dreams for myself, whom I'm sharing my life with then and there or the family that I could be building or already have. Granted this could be as early as age 30 or who knows when... I thank the Lord everyday and pray for my family that they are in good health - but I know they won't always be able to go strong this way and here I am age 23, and my life can change drastically at any moment. Well anybody's life can... There's always the possibility of I, leaving before my folks. I actually was in a life-threatening situation 2 years ago and it was not fun. I swear I thought my life was going to go dark-black right then and there at age 21.
One thing I must strongly urge parents of today's youth is that just coming out of college, I still feel small and weak when the parents are concerned. I'm still their baby. Never ever -ever verbally tell your son or daughter "You're such an embarrassment", "You're so lazy", and "That's Bullshit". If you ever use those phrases to your children or loved ones, you have just lost partial or all respect from the for the time being... and eventually they will get over what you said - but they will never forget; it will haunt them. This has happened to me within the past week. This past year I have been getting back into my Christian background in which I was brought up through with my mother and sister. My father is an ex-catholic. Around 1998 and September 11th, 2001 time frame - Mom decided not taking my sister and I to church... and I would like to blame her for the disconnect from the Lord, our savior. So since my Sophomore year of HS, I attended church by myself, became a member, sang in the choir - pursuing this all by myself. It wasn't easy. It still isn't... with a family of non-believers? I don't understand what happened. It's something I currently struggle with - how to communicate to them through the way of the Lord, and Jesus Christ. I feel I can only do so much. Before coming home from college, I knew all of us were going to be living under the same roof for some time. Something I was actually looking forward too - perhaps knowing our family was already at a disconnect on other levels versus religion. I actually looked forward to this moment of trying to bring our family together to be on the same page as we once were... but I realize I'm not all that strong too. I thought I could come home and brush the dust off of their hearts. The hearts of the family I knew. But I can't. I feel like a failure and a failure is "such an embarrassment".
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