I care too much to find out that you don't really care. I don't mean that in a rude way. I just mean that you have your own life, and reading a blog about my life is a very small part of it. The words that I spend hours choosing carefully will be read within minutes, and probably forgotten about within a day or two. I'm not mad about it, it would be strange if someone's whole life revolved around this blog. It's just hard sometimes to throw my most vulnerable thoughts into a medium that is consumed so quickly and soon forgotten. But my writing is the best way I know to share what matters to me, and there are some things about what I do here in Nome that I haven't shared.
So while I have your attention for a few minutes, I want you to know that what I'm about to tell you is very important and even sacred to me. It may not mean much to you, but it means everything to me that I'm choosing to share this with you at this moment in time. So, as you read this, remember the pictures I've shared of the children I have the privilege of spending time with every day. Remember how cute you might think they are, and how sweet you think they look.
What goes through your mind when I reveal to you that many of them are living with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders? Do you want to gasp and say "Bless their hearts"? I could write a whole post on my strong dislike for that sentiment, but we'll get to that later. Do you think about some out of context fact you heard once about Native Americans drinking too much? Do you cast judgement on the mothers of these children? I did too, until I had enough education and self discipline to lay down that judgement. And to be completely honest, there are moments of deep frustration when I let that judgement creep back in, but I am working on it.
What is your reaction when I tell you that these children are the children and grandchildren of people affected by trauma? The majority of the people that caused that trauma caused it in the name of God. They called themselves missionaries while removing children from their homes and families, and telling them that their culture was sinful. This meant that an entire generation grew up separated from their family and their culture, and the effects of that separation are still visible in their grandchildren and great grandchildren today.
Maybe you were raised to believe that everyone should just pull themselves up by their bootstraps, and that every obstacle in the world can be overcome if you're willing to work hard enough. I grew up in a place where that mentality runs rampant, but it is not a mentality that lines up in any way with anything my faith teaches me. It also does not line up with anything I've learned about trauma, and the way it literally changes the structure of the human brain. I know that many of you who read this are living where I grew up, where I'm sure that mentality is just as prominent as it was when I left back in August. Since I know this, I've waited over nine months to share this information with you. I don't want you to use that mentality to make judgements about people you have never met, who are people that mean a lot to me.
But as much as I might like too, I cannot control what the rest of the world thinks. I can only write about things as I see them, and hope that something good will come of it. So there it is, I've finally written about the thing that I haven't been able to write about for months. And maybe it turned out to be just another blog post. Or maybe, someone out there will stop and think for just a minute, and begin to see things a little bit differently.
