DNA Connecting Family, and Feeling Like I Don't Care Sometimes

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DNA flows within our bodies, connecting us to our ancestors and  relatives. It is there affecting our lives, even when we are not in contact with our actual family. Everything you do affects the DNA even if you don't care. You cannot just run or think you are gone from their hearts by physical separation; you still live on in their hearts and bodies. As a mother never loses the cells of her child in her body, long after they are born and thrust into the world on their own, and she forever grieves their departure, worrying about their safety and lives, even after they die unnaturally before her time.

My biological aunt died yesterday at 48, young and addicted to alcohol or drugs. I never got to know her, having only met once during my first ever reunion with her sister, sister's daughter and her kids, and my biological grandmother. The family is very dysfunctional, like my grandmother their mother was alcoholic when they were growing up and was promiscuous because she had 2 kids with another man while married to their father and he never left her. So the outer grief was kind of empty. Inside my DNA I felt bad though, as if it was alive and piecing through. I knew we were connected, and I must be aware of her pain because it already lives in me. Perhaps this was why my daughter showed more tension than usual, and I had the roughest time with her not sleeping. She was tired all night but just not sleeping. Until I finally allowed myself to cry at 2 am out off sheer exhaustion and frustration. She looked at me with her calm expression and fell asleep easily at 2:30. I must have been projection my tension onto her, too. Running away from the feelings with frustration all night.

As well, I always have had a hard time expressing or feeling grief when relatives died or had pain. I think this was partly because my adoptive family was so bad at expressing true feelings, and they kind of manipulated people to showing they cared but did not truly believe it. I felt forced into it and bad if I showed that I did not really feel pain, so felt forced to fake it. Now I see it was because I had so much unacknowledged pain of my own that no one acknowledged. When I know confidently that I belong to the DNA of my family, I feel more of right to feel their pain, but I have not caught up yet. When my birth father said, "I am scared everyone is dying...I think I am next!" I froze inside and felt that same uncertainty of my feelings about that. I said don't say that, but was not really sure if I cared truly. I need to figure out my true feelings, if the love is there or not. It feels good being allowed to chose how I feel.

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