Resigning From Generational Curses

I write this letter, addressing not one person, but a collection of entities haunting familial peace and progression.

Energy born of bad vibrations. Energy born of bad habits, uneducated thinking, and the snowball effect passed through ancestry. Generational curses, you've had your time. Time to inflict damage. Time to breathe your story into newborns. Time to hassle, hex, and hover, over and over again.

Consider this my resignation letter. I will no longer participate in your age-old agenda!

Long before I was even a dream, even a thought in my parents' minds, generational curses (yes, you lot) had a grip on our family's identity. Did it begin in Germany before my paternal great-grandfather immigrated to the United States? Did it emerge from Maternal British roots in Merry ol' England? Did it go back even farther beyond stories I knew about, remembered, or eavesdropped on as the curious girl I always was?

I check yes to each of the above.

Resigning means defining, so with this statement, I must lay it all down, raw like meat for all the times I'd rather not chew upon the truth. But today, today, I eat, eat it all, a meal not cooked for the hungry, but prepared and shoved down the throats of the already full.

Full from eating what I like to call ghastly soup- not a literal dish simmered and served, but a metaphorical one comprised of poisonous ingredients falling off the family tree.

Consider this dinner, much like all those family meals, when conversation and eating did not mix. "No yakking at the table," eh- well, I break that rule today. Digest the undigested, contest the will and testament of departed spirits still handling familial affairs.

Now let us all sit down to dinner. Ladle in hand, I stir the pot, divulging ingredients, curses fed to me, my siblings, my parents, my grandparents, and the greats beyond.

This meal, this sit down, reveals broth and brew. Ingredients, not literally digestible constituents, but elements causing deep rooted upset. Oh, how the oft perceived horrors wooed our family into wakeful obedience; yet today, reclaiming the hand of modern day martriarch is the equivalent of a master chef , wooing the boos to sleep.

Ghastly soup is a deadly blend of alcoholism, emotional abuse, and superstition, chasing souls across timelines.

Come, come, sit. Gather around, dearly departed souls. Ghastly soup has been simmering for centuries, and as souls who much prefer eating the same old dish over and over, I am confident you'll be satisfied with my brew whipped up from recollections.

Hmm, hmm, hmm, taste the spice of alcoholism, one of the main ingredients giving the soup its pungent bite.

Grandpa, a cruel drunk, raised my father and my uncles with an iron fist. Farmer, tree surveyor, of German descent, knew only of his way, so his way was THE way. A nonbeliever in doctors, women working, sexual deviances (homosexuality), and anything outside his "norm" was difficult enough without his ever-present slurred speech alluding to many passed-out moments.

Boots out and body under his tractor, that's where he'd be with his German shepherds, one on either side, while he surrendered to a drunken wasteland by midday, every day.

"Hello, my darling," a three-year-old me's greeting that made for many cheerful family conversations, but grandma knew better; she knew the darkness. Christmas without a single gift under the tree, I remember hearing this tale, a reflection from my father, retold many holiday seasons.

How's the soup, everyone?

How about the double dose of alcohol? Is it kindred to your love for spirits?

Ah, yes, alcoholism from the maternal side. Another grandpa, but one I never got to know. He passed away when I was a baby, walking home from a bar in England. Hit by a car on an unmentionable Friday the 13th, but that detail must wait a moment. The funny thing is, I lack pertinent details of Mum's side of the family. In between all the "I don't remember" and the all too quick to shift to another topic occurrences, I am left with only snippets, mere morsels, hardly enough to feed a little one's tummy.

But still, a child must eat. So, I filled up on available information.

Back to the unmentionable Friday the 13th- indeed, an untimely death. Was this a curse of a different sort? Flashing through memories, I remember Mum's recollections of being locked in an outhouse with her sister by a nanny of sorts. A trusted helping hand had her own agenda; "Putting a curse on the family" is the only other detail I was ever able to acquire.

What I can say without hesitation or doubt is that whatever happened in that home gave superstition an upper hand in maternal family rearing.

"Don't put shoes on the table."

"Don't open the umbrella in the house."

"Don't walk under the ladder."

The above-mentioned and far too many more to mention haunted my childhood home, but one particular occurrence stands out in my mind, which has always shaken me to my core.

During a childhood argument, I shouted at my sister, "I put a curse on you."

Another side of Mum emerged, a side parallel to an exorcist with high commanding authority.

"Take it back, take it back right now!"

And so I did, and in that home, none of us children ever uttered the word CURSE again.

Emotional distress was not uncommon for me as a girl, often plagued with confusion, confusion prompted by not enough answers with far too much erroneous activity, earning its rightful moment, a peak conversational moment, tracing the lineage of abuse.

But shhh... That language is adamantly forbidden. Abuse? What is that?

Dummy, jackass, & fool were my teen nicknames. Words spoken in haste by parents who likely endured much of the same growing up. My sheltered upbringing met personal rebellion a thousand times when I figured out my family dynamic was far from normal.

Attempting to go against the grain, the rules set in place, as extreme as they were, met with a paternal iron hand, similar but evolved from the threads of ancestral parenting.

I became the fool, the perceived set to fail, who, after hearing "You can pack your bags and leave" one too many times, finally did a few short months after my eighteenth birthday.

Wounded, emotional wounds from genetic rehashings, naively meant to educate and build character, but instead built walls of self-hatred hidden behind deeply embedded grudges.

History repeats when we least expect it- Nah, the hints lie in the precursors of past events passed down like heirlooms, maintaining the family name.

Heirlooms, generations of gifts best left unwrapped and tucked away in cobwebbed trunks.

Speaking of cobwebs, do you all hear me? Richard, Georgia, Ivy, Alfred, Susan, Frederick, Lillian, do you hear me?

Aghast, I must refine my utterings of this ghastly meal. This is not soup and seance.

I shall refrain from further role-calling. Besides, generational curses date back further than knowlege at my disposal. Creaking foundations, likely for centuries, but the floorboards need not creak anymore.

No, I say.

As a matter of fact, soup time is over. Look at you lot, slurping down your broth like you are half-starved. But you do not fool me. No, you've been overfed far too many times, fattening with each mealtime. I take back all your bowls and return all uneaten portions to the pot. To think some of you are standing in line for a second helping.

Ugh, haggling with ghosts- I think not!

To the pot, I say, with my ladle in hand. And with this hand, I add this letter, shredded into illegible pieces, dissolving into components, poisoning our family line. Not one person will read this letter meant only for the dead.

Dead to rights, is my conviction; curses bear no more weight on me, for I am not a damned woman.

I stand as a spiritually enlightened modern-day matriarch who realizes that generations of ill behavior have passed through bloodlines, out of fear, sinisterly spun into unsuspecting souls. Fear of repetition crawled and crept from the crypt, but today, I banish it all back to its final resting place.

Ghastly soup is the equivalent of malnourishment, Generational curses, this is your banishment!

I pour this soup into the earth, anointing headstones.

I forgive the mistakes of the living and unliving.

I continue to love, knowing the weight of the evil eye.

But I will not, repeat, will not, spend one more day of my earthly walk entertaining curses. My spirit is free, understanding that past mistakes do not define my being, do not determine my worth, do not depreciate my kin, living, and those yet to take their first breath on this plane.

Written with the utmost respect,

Your daughter, granddaughter, great-granddaughter, niece, great niece, cousin, second cousin, so forth and beyond.