FYI

So much has happened over  a short period of time. It is mind boggling and confusing and I have not had time to really analyze how I feel. I know just under the surface is strong emotion and if I were to tap into it....joy, sadness, bewilderment, change. I am not going to lie, its hard so hard. I miss my friends in Sicily, they are my family, my support. I was watching videos I had taken of at my old house (it feels weird to call it my old house) and just how in a matter of a few months, it was all stripped away and replaced with something new and foreign. I was watching videos of my friends and I and just remembering how it used to be. I really like Chicago and my new roommates and I think given time I will find my niche, but right now at this moment, I am homesick,  after four years Sicily became my home. I don't associate Minnesota with home as much as I used to.

A question I get asked all the time is why Chicago why not move back to Minnesota. When my family heard that I was moving back stateside, they wanted me to move home and you know what? I just couldn't, I absolutely could not and would not. I would rather live in a strange city with people I barely know and  this is why:

When my mother divorced from my stepfather, she moved back home from Texas with five kids in tow and we lived with my Grandparents (which long story short is part of the reason they raised us). She went back to Minnesota and she got stuck and was dependent on my Grandparents for everything. Sad as it is; she never got back on her feet and consequently became the black sheep of the family. The family grew to resent her and would trash talk her (mainly my aunts and uncles) in front of my siblings and I at family gatherings. I am not saying it is fair or right, personally I think it is fucked up but there you have it, it is what it is. We were not allowed to speak up or defend my mother (and there were many times each of my siblings and I tried but it would back fire and we would become the target). I swear we were viewed as the spawn of Satan and bad seed and the evil had to be stamped out of us. Maybe you can now imagine how my family feels about the current life choice I have made. Which adds more incentive for me to stay away.

So this is why I refuse to go back. I refuse to let the family brand me a failure, a word they love to throw around a lot. I refuse to go back and let my Grandparents rule and dictate my life. And as much as I love my mother, I refuse to go back and be her nursemaid. I refuse to go back and depend on my Grandparents because in the golden years of their life they should be allowed to enjoy their retirement and all that they have worked so hard for.