Generations

No, Star Trek fans, I am not talking about the 1994 movie with Kirk and Picard. (I will get so much crap for this, but for the record, it’s leaps and bounds above Nemesis, but I like Insurrection and First Contact better.)

What I am talking about is 5 generations in my matriarchal lineage.

If I haven’t mentioned this already, Luna and I are living with my parents. We moved in here when I left Dmitry in January of 2022, and we’ve been here since. The plan was to stay for no longer than 4-6 months, then move into an apartment last summer. My parents were empty nesters and eager to have us stay with them, so they hated the idea of us leaving. They still do.

Long story short, they offered us to stay longer while I save up to buy us a house and to give Luna more support and stability. I really couldn’t argue with that, so I swallowed my pride, and we’ve been here ever since. I have to admit, they’ve been right. I contribute financially here, but nothing near what I’d be responsible for at my own place, allowing me to save up to invest in a permanent home. Luna loves having her grandparents around all the time, and she is stable, safe, and supported — we both are.

I anticipated that I would butt heads with my mother a lot upon moving in. We always butted heads when I was a teenager, so that’s what I expected.

To an extent, we had some of the anticipated tension. Every now an again, we still have some conflict.

But I was very pleasantly surprised to find that we had both grown enough that we could resolve our conflicts without huge, hurtful, explosive arguments. It’s another reason why I decided to stay; we were able to coexist and cooperate, so I wasn’t utterly miserable the way I was when I was a teenager and chomping at the bit, ready to move out.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m still ready to move out and run my own household again. I am saving aggressively, and one of these days, I will be prepared to take the leap into home ownership. On that beautiful, wonderful day, I will very excitedly take my place as a proud homeowner.

And although I get frustrated with not having my own home and control over all of my space, I don’t feel suffocated. A lot of that is, as I said, due to the personal growth of my mother and myself, leading to growth in our relationship.

We’ve come a very long way.

And when I talk about it with her and my sisters, it really strikes me just how far we’ve come from generation to generation.

Speaking of my sisters, they are visiting us this week. My older sister and her husband flew in from the Northeast. My younger sister made a trip with my nephew to pick them up when they landed and drove them in the rest of the way. They’ve been visiting for the last 3 days, and they will leave to visit my brother-in-law’s family tomorrow.

It’s been so, so great to have them visit. And it’s been the first time we’ve all been under the roof of our childhood home together since November of 2021. It was really nice to see them both together, nostalgic to all be together with my parents in their house, and gave me the opportunity to reflect.

Reflect on our childhood.

On our growth.

The dynamics all of our relationships with each other and how they’ve changed over the years. Mostly for the better. And the things that have bent out of shape are on the mend.

We live in the South. My older sister moved to the Northeast for school in the fall of 2019. She’s been there ever since and has no plans to leave anytime soon. My younger sister is set to move to the Northeast later this month. If she has her way, she’ll never move back down.

Both of them chose to move in large part because of their relationships with our parents.

While our parents don’t quite see it that way, they are hurt that their children have are so far away. I had a lengthy discussion about this with my mother night before last, and it was actually really very enlightening.

She told me about a conversation that she recently had with her mother, my grandmother. My grandmother is 90 years old and is starting to show some signs of dementia. She has some trouble remembering specific things, even asking my mother where she’s living and asking if she is doing well. My mother has lived in the US for the last 22 years, and until about 6 months ago, my grandmother was keenly aware of that.

Recently, during a conversation when she was somewhere in between lucidity and confusion, my grandmother told my mother of a painful memory that she has carried for 35 years. When she was in her twenties, my mother married my dad and left South Korea for the States.

My grandmother told my mother that she remembers very clearly the sight of my mother and father going up the escalator at the airport. She watched and watched until they were out of her line of vision and she couldn’t see them anymore, wondering how her youngest daughter was going to fare so far from home, wondering when she would see her again, feeling a piece of her heart leaving her, perhaps forever.

Children live their lives and sometimes forget how it affects their parents.

And when my mother heard her mother tell her the way she felt when my mom and dad moved away, her heart broke.

But she gained an understanding too.

She left for a better life. She left because she believed it was her greatest chance at happiness and fulfillment. She left because she was going on the greatest adventure of her life.

And that’s what my sisters are doing. And as much as it hurts to have her babies far away from her, she recognizes that they are following the paths that they believe will bring them the greatest happiness. It is helping her to accept the difficult reality of her children living 2000 miles away.

I’m proud of her. She’d normally take this all so personally that I’d have had to point out the similarities in the two situations to her. And she would have still found a way to reject what I had to say. She would have said that there’s no comparison because she moved to the US because she had no opportunities in South Korea, that there are plenty of opportunities here and it’s not the same.

But she came to this conclusion on her own and shared her thoughts with me.

And it strikes me that we as a family have come so far.

5th Generation: My great-grandmothers (my grandmother’s and grandfather’s mothers) came from extremely difficult lives. They lived through the Japanese invasion of South Korea. They lived in poverty, a patriarchal society, a hostile occupation. They survived as best as they could, but they did not have the opportunity to get an education or create a better life for themselves.

4th Generation: My grandmother was born in 1933. She was born into the Japanese occupation, which didn’t end until she was 12. She was the middle child, the only girl with six brothers. Her father doted on her, but he died when she was young. Her mother put her to work since back then, boys did not do anything around the house.

My grandmother was sent off in an arranged marriage as a teen, and her mother-in-law mistreated her, forcing her to take care of my eldest aunt and my grandfather’s youngest sibling (who was born after my aunt) as well as doing all the house work and cooking. She never went to school or had the chance to do anything more than what she was trapped into as a sister, daughter, wife, and mother.

3rd Generation: My mother grew up in poverty as well, but was able to go to school in spite of this. She put herself through secondary education, fell in love with my dad, and moved to the US. She stayed home for a few years until my younger sister started school. She went back to school in her 40s earned her bachelor’s degree at 50.

She was rough on us growing up. She tended not to listen to us, was controlling, did not model or teach us emotional intelligence, and disciplined us with physical punishments. Over many years, she has learned more emotional intelligence, healthy conflict resolution, and positive personal communication skills. And she has never spanked her grandchildren.

4th Generation: That’s me. I didn’t grow up in poverty. We lived comfortably, and my parents have been able to help us all financially when we fall on hard times. They are loving and caring parents, and I grew up knowing I was loved, safe, and healthy. At least physically healthy. My emotional and mental health have not always been the best, but I have grown leaps and bounds in this area in the last 2 years.

Financially, I do alright for myself now that I’ve shed the weight of my ex husband and his deplorable spending habits. I am able to comfortably provide while saving for the future despite Dmitry’s refusal to pay child support.

As a mom, I’ve got a gentle parenting style in which conversation and healthy conflict resolution are the key components. I will admit that when my mental and emotional health were at their worst, I spanked and yelled. I’m not proud of that version of me, and if I could take it all back, I would. But I have learned a better way, and now I don’t even use time out or taking toys/TV/games away as punishment. We have conversations about our emotions, clear up misunderstandings, and strive to learn more about how we interact with one another.

5th Generation: My dearest Luna is the latest little girl in the line of very strong women (including aunts, cousins, and sisters I didn’t even mention here). I can tell you that as a toddler, she has more emotional intelligence than I did a few years ago. She has so much support from a loving and stable family, and she is already incredibly strong yet sensitive.

With the increasing breaking of generational curses that we’ve seen from generation to generation, I am confident that Luna will be able to break even more generational curses and have an even more fulfilled life sooner.

We started in war and poverty. My mother broke us out of poverty and gave us a chance at a better life. She and I have broken us out of restricting mindsets that have kept us down emotionally and mentally. I am taking my mother’s work one step further and bringing us into greater wealth and opportunity. I have every confidence that Luna will continue to heal the emotional wounds that have been passed down through the generations.

I am proud of our family.

I am proud of my mother.

I am proud of Luna.

I am proud of myself.

I’ve heard it said that you have to know where you come from in order to fully understand yourself. I don’t know if that is true, but I do know that seeing how much progress we’ve made in the last 5 generations is eye opening to say the least. And knowing that we are continuing to do this work even now as we each grow and learn and expand ourselves makes me want to keep going.

To keep pressing forward into the unknown, to keep healing. It’s not just me that is healing. It’s Luna. It’s her daughters. It’s my granddaughter’s daughters. On and on. The foundation for the next step is laid with me, and I may have had a rocky start, but I intend to correct my mistakes and make it a strong one for them to stand on and keep climbing higher and higher.

I feel so encouraged right now. After so much darkness, to be able to see such light. I hope in a few generations, one of my daughter’s daughter’s daughters will be able to say

Great grandma Lynda had her faults and made plenty of mistakes, but she was a hell of a woman and healed some generational curses, just like her mother. Grandma Luna took that a step further and brought us to this awesome point. My mom has been building on their foundation her whole life, and now I am able to continue the family legacy of breaking generational curses to the next level.”

~One of My Future Great Granddaughters

Ain’t life a beautiful thing?

**READ ME (please)**
Two things!

One, please note that the names of everyone in this blog have been altered to protect the people I write about. My main goal is to explore my experiences and my growth, not air anyone’s dirty laundry out. Any likeness to people you know in real life are probably coincidental. (I mean what are the chances? It’s a pretty big world!)

Two, the thoughts and opinions I express in this blog are merely a result of my personal experiences to this point in my life. If there is anything I have misrepresented, overlooked, or have a blind spot for, feel free to leave a comment or email me at contact@livingbetween.net. (Yes, this includes typos. Let me fix my typos, please!) All I ask is that you always remain respectful.

Talk soon!
– Lynda –