I blame my papa

 I blame my grandpa for this vanity....... I often think how dare this person not realize I am the most beautiful person in the world, from birth my grandpa would hold a mirror to my face and say look Lizzie that is the most beautiful person in the world. This vanity I speak of has always given me this armor to face the world because if they only knew I am the most beautiful person in the world my grandpa told me so. I truly believe all the self confidence in the world can come from many places and this is where mine came from and slowly over the past few months I have begun to remember the who and most importantly the why.

My uncle told me the other day Lizzie we don't quit we don't know how, you don't quit on life on people on yourself. 

Honestly I think that was a tad bit hard to hear cause I am at my core a weak woman when it comes to self care. I would so rather focus on the people I love. I would rather make sure every person around me is comfortable content secure. Me I'll be ok those five words again 🤦🏻‍♀️. 

As I sit here after deleting friend requests from those who are here for the downfall of me and reading then blocking messages from people who only pretended to care to hear my story. But more importantly not giving that person my power ever again remembering just who the hell Lizzie is with out her children without him.

I have come to the realization that I have to start to love myself first if that means maybe your feelings get hurt I can't control that aspect anymore. 

The old Liz before children was a I don't give a flying fuck about you or you or most importantly them. One of my favorite cousins told me oh Liz your a bitch but your good at it 

Yes yes I truly am I blame my papa for he told me from birth how special I am it's time and life that has knocked me down a few pegs, HOWEVER I found me at the bottom of this broken pile of heartbreak and resilience and if you thought 16 year old Liz was a mean bitch you ain't seen nothing yet my family gave me that power 49 years ago I dropped it but I picked it back up. 

I don't owe anyone anything anymore either your in my corner or get out of my way, I did my duty raised my children was a good person tried to be humble and quiet but that was then this is now.

Where ever this new year takes me I blame my papa for he told me it was ok.

You hear alot of people saying new year new me nope not this fool who isn't a fool anymore this year the old me is coming back 

* .....

 When you are reading the history books there usually at the end of a chapter there are some after thoughts. There are some things that may have affected the history you are reading about but in the overall story they really didn't matter enough to add to the overall text.

Things with an asterisk are usually in very small print usually they are not easily found and when they are found you realize that they really didn't change the story only added on little bit to it so inconsequential that the author felt it wasn't important enough to include it.

As most of you know by now I started this blog because of an asterisk. I am not calling this person that, in fact that is what their blocked number was saved as in his phone. No name no number..... just that *. 

At first this really bothered me as why oh why would you not at least give them a name.... a fake name, a persona something, after all they said, all they believed in their pretend relationship. I have never questioned him on who's numbers are saved, I never check messages, I had trust.  HAD..... 

So I bit the preverbal bullet. Asked him, after the winter we have had I can't have either of us dying and not knowing the real truth. Why save this oh so special persons name at least shit name her Max the hoot or some shit. Save the number as Joe or Jim or Bitch shit I don't know, but it is one of the many many things that bother me still. 

His answer was so simple maybe he is lying maybe it's so simple that it makes sense after 3 months I still can't figure out which is true.   

I didn't save her number I blocked her number because I though she was being friendly first, talking about my dad, talking about my family on TV then she got weird. Plus she's married, she reached out to me and I just didn't want all that trouble. 

Now that part about her being married, living with someone that part is totally true, in fact her husband is suppose to be a part of our peoples holiest of people. She is suppose to be a respected part of our community. SUPPOSE TO BE. 

To me the act of texting talking is just as bad if not worse then actually sleeping with someone, you let this person in had conversations, that is way worse. I don't know if I am being silly I don't even care that they talked, it's that she thought because of these conversations that she was his soul mate. Can I get over that I do not know. Did her spouse know, what would he feel. I had a fleeting thought can I handle the smoke the fight and all I thought was fuck that bring it that is how I get over shit, get mad beat it up and move on. This humble quiet person this isn't me. 

I told her I would expose her for the snake she really is. She claimed I was harassing her, she called me but I was bothering her. So from my hospital bed I told the police the truth after she contacted them to claim I was harassing and basically stalking her. And felt I needed to not carry it on another family didn't deserve to be destroyed. That on top of my mother in Law and every other woman telling me men slip if you truly love each other you will work through it.

I don't disagree men all men I don't care who raised them are huge children. Every wife and girlfriend shit every sister knows this as a fact. But a woman who seeks out a man, while in a relationship, literally stalks his family and then tries to get rid of the wife, what is her excuse. I have never blamed others alone for all of his problems.

I am very logical usually. I don't ever let emotions take over. My mom use to tell me I had the most active imagination because I would (and still do) play every scenario out in whatever is happening. It's part of the reason I could never be an addict I need to be in control. I don't know why I am like this I just am, that is why I think everyone was so shocked at what I did. I am way to rational way to level headed. 

The reason this one bothered me was because it wasn't physical, it was more intimate, it wasn't a physical attraction, He even said she was homely. HOMELY like that should make me feel better it didn't it made me question everything about myself. Did I somehow the prettiest girl in the world lose her edge. Did I the most engaged person in every room be come so boring he needed to seek outside conversation. This is the shit no one talks about the blow to your ego as a person. I know or knew my worth. I had built myself time and time again. But this how do you compete with someone who is so below you intellectually but also in looks in friends in life. the blow to my ego was what got me. The second hand embarrassment for him.  Everyone knows I am battling cancer it goes into remission then when I think oh I'm in the clear it pops up in another location. Like whack-a-mole. 

If this got out how angry would people be because he was too weak to be there for me.  He needed comfort or to be propped up. All while I struggled in silence. Till Death do we part.  Maybe I am dying yes I am scared but I wasn't dead yet fucker. and for this I am still so angry. For this I WANT TO NAME names. But I also don't want the embarrassment of people knowing that is who she is. I mean I do not know anything about her, let alone what she looks like. What if she is better looking what if she is smarter what if she was right about everything. 

I hate self doubt HATE it. But do both of them deserve the shame..... more importantly do I and her spouse? Hurt people hurt people Liz don't hurt others it won't make you feel better..... I feel like that meme 

"YOU SURE BOUT THAT"

There are things I just can't seem to get out of my mind like when we drive through some place I think did you go here with her? Or that one time when you were drinking and you were here for a week were you with her.  I can't get rid of the feeling someone is watching me to see if we split up. and I can't promise we are going to but I can't promise we are going to stay together my mind just won't quit. HOWEVER this asterisk she doesn't deserve to win this imaginary battle with me. I am the one with the life she wanted. With the mother in Law husband and children she wanted. She wanted the fame. the whatever. So do I give it to her? and drag myself down in the process.

So my husband the person whom I am the angriest at got sick, like really sick could be dying sick, not once did I ever feel like oh gosh how am I going to deal with him being so sick what about me and my sensitive ego.....  Which person from my past can I reach out to and talk to not sext not plan a hook up just talk to.... I couldn't even imagine doing that to him, yet that is exactly what he did..... 

Yet here I am at his beck and call, ensuring he stays calm, getting him to his appointments making sure he is comfortable doing all the paperwork so he can continue to be paid you know doing what a spouse does. Does this make me a bigger person? No it makes me a person who actually cares for the person whom I have built my life. 

I have had some of their family try to friend request me some of his friends claim they had nothing to do with any of this without prompting only making me realize there is no safe space for me to truly heal.

Speaking with my therapist because how else am I going to get through this I have come to realization I may never get the answers I truly need because I will never know why people do the things they do all I can do is control what I do and how.

My brother once famously said I can't stand having meetings just to have meetings and I feel the same damn way about therapy sometimes I don't need to continue to talk just to talk that is not the generation I grew up in I need to deal with this by getting through it talk is cheap and a waste of time. every question should not be asked unless you are prepared for the answers. that being said I am not ready nor do I think I will ever be truly ready for the disappointment all of this has brought me. 

I also have to accept this has changed me in so many ways. I am bitter but I am also to the point where I just don't care anymore about who I hurt or how, I am broken and I truly don't know three months out of the asterisk that tried to change the course of my life almost succeeded if I will truly ever heal from all of this. I do know that she shouldn't matter and me holding back her name isn't protecting her its saving me from something that is nothing more then a footnote.

I joked with the brother maybe my husband getting sick was bad medicine if your native you get the joke, but seriously is this what karma is? It was so hard for him to "DEAL"  with my illness and death hanging around that maybe now he has to face it daily. that is horrible to say but hey he said it first to that * thing and then to me in his explanation so I guess it is plausible. Either way listen here you lurking back there waiting to see us fall, sending messages through people 

YES he is being cared for YES we are still a WE and if you want him just let me know cause the for better or worse shoe is now on the other foot. 

 

In the land of hay Ya's and Yee Haws.

 For as long as I can remember I have learned about our people. Our people our race. Our plight our fight our existence. All of it. I learned about all of it.

I learned of the dangers of the different kinds of genocide that were continually introduced to us. I learned that evil man with the little mustache modeled his camps after our residential schools.  I learned all the stuff not put in the history books.

So in honor of the beginning of Native American History Month (Thanks Obama) I decided I would write down my thoughts on all of this. a little change of pace for me, in fact I do have some stuff to get off my chest after attending the annual INFR but that will be for another day, today I want to speak on these matters. Because these matters matter.

It is kind of strange to see Native issues in the forefront of things like the Oscar race and in the music world. Now if you are living under a rock you wouldn't know about these issues, but if like me you live in the world you know all about Buffy and Killers of the Flower Moon. So which do I tackle first? Which deserves more of my time of my thoughts..... they both do.  There are problems with both of these current issues. And on the flip side they both have some positives. 

I met him on the Pow Wow Trail....... 

Everyone in Indian Country knows this line, shit we have all sung it at the top of our lungs at a 49 party or driving in a car with our friends. Her relevance to our people is not even measurable, or undeniable. She put our people and their fight on the map. I never really liked her now no one tell my dead mother that because Buffy was her friend, but it is true. I have never like people who try too hard to make others see them, and one thing about Buffy is that she makes people look at her.

Buffy in all her glory is defined best by her own child, who said an Italian woman with a big nose is not beautiful but tell the world she is Indian and all of a sudden.....

The real problem one that is just being brought to light is one that no one and everyone simultaneously wants to tackle. The pretend Indian the fake, there are people who say there are over 200,000 people pretending to be first nations, getting what little funding and fame that brings. But in my mind there is so many more they have made up an entire race to infringe on native rights. a part of the continued genocide which has moved to on paper. 

The fascination with our race is nothing new. it is equal parts curiosity and hubris. I fancy myself a history buff, not just the history of my people which I am well versed in but in history in general. History proves that the victor writes the history. Think about that statement. The battle with the Indian was never won, there was a peace treaty signed.... then slowly violated but none the less it was a peace treaty, the white man has taken it on himself to write our history. People like Buffy took this and decided that she would give herself a bit of our history. 

She really wasn't the first to do this but by far she is the most successful at it. For their entire lives here on turtle island white people have been claiming things that are ours and passing them off as their own. There is no way we can be smart enough to create things, invent things, name things. When you look through the tapestry that makes up Canada and the United States, our people's hands are all over every aspect of it.  The constitution of the USA was taken from the eastern tribes and the name Canada was taken from the same people. Various sports, inventions, cities and locations all taken from Native words, yet the credit until recently has never been given to those who it should be.

I do not think what Buffy did was ok in fact what she did was something worse then pretending to be something she never was but she also worked her way into a tribe, a wolf in sheepskin. Studying learning and using that tribe for her own personal gain. Our tribe has had various people who have done this, marrying our members attending our ceremonies and then sharing what they have learned for profit. PROFIT. our ancestors once said when signing treaties we can not trade the lands for money because if you throw the dirt on a fire it won't burn but if you throw your money on the fire it will. The land will outlast your paper money. We didn't think the way a white person thinks we still don't in some ways. the things done by Buffy, were for fame and profit, it was never for the people surrounding her with love. 

If we are to attack her for what she did then we should be battling against other ways the white man is attacking us namely the Metis. This made up construct of people who can not provide their linage do not belong to any tribe, but yet somehow are equal to our tribal people is a new attack on us, and one where we feel we should not speak up. Take a step back and realize that they too have taken what is not theirs and claimed it for their own. If our collective outrage should be directed anywhere it should be there before it is too late.

and that is where I will leave the Buffy section.... "As I go back to Canada"

As a Blackfoot woman I have a sense of pride as I see pictures of Lily Gladstone on TV's posters, and in the news. Man she got to meet Leo...... and Dinero I mean.... come on how cool. Then you read the reviews..... mostly great mostly praise

Except for a few who have decided why if these people were so well off why would they subject themselves to being married to the white man? Why would they let a white man dictate their finances? 

Of course the source material was written by a white man, like I stated before they write their own version of history. But this did happen I watched the movie and there were explanations not included in the either the book or the screenplay.

There have always been these checks and balances as they were called in every deal made with my people. We after all were, savages and in their eyes incapable of handling our own finances let alone caring for ourselves. Women of that tribe married non natives because even though their elders didn't approve they wanted to have control and marrying one gave them more control because then the white man became their care giver.  These choices affect our race even today.

Because we have been told our ways are evil, the English language beat into us and their churches forced onto us we still have this way of looking at the world. We have this misguided outlook that we simultaneously have zero trust and look for their approval. 

We knew we couldn't trust the white man but to this day we must ask for approval for every thing we do on our reservations. We are not allowed to control our finances totally, we have to request for everything we need to do, and our core funding although it comes from our own money we can not use as we wish. Federal governments control our monies, our membership, and our day to day activities. 

We all know our treaty numbers, these numbers are rattled off for most tribal business, no one has taken the time to realize what these numbers are, these are tracking tools. Another tool set up to watch us. the only difference between us and those in Germany is our number is not tattooed on our forearm. 

I think although this book and movie is out there and only tells a part of Molly and her family it is a beginning and now our people can start to tell our tribal stories because we all have them. Each tribe has stories of horror and killing. Now is the time for our people to step out of the shadows not ask for permission but to take the reigns and get the real history out there.

Each of these things is proof that our stories our lives are still being profited off by non natives. Now is the time for us to take our history back. Buffy got away with her lie for her entire adult life made millions of dollars, and the tribe she claims never benefitted from one dollar. At least when the Movie was made of the book Killers of the Flower Moon, The Osage people were consulted their language spoken and their people were used when they were able to. It may be small steps but they are steps in the right direction.

Now it up to my generation to work towards getting the stories out there, in which ever way we choose to do so and to ensure that our children and their children are made aware of where we were and where our people are going.

As for the pretendindians all of them, I see you and no matter the backlash we must defend what is ours. My first step is to say publicly that there is no Metis nation. they are not a nation, they are not a race, if you are first nations, trace your linage back to a tribe, give proof. There are only 3 types of animal that are required to provide proof of who they are......

Dogs

Horses

and Indians.

If you have Indian blood you can prove it on paper we all have to, so should you. These are your rules all we ask is you follow them.

Facing fears and eating Arbys

 We all shy away from the difficult conversations no matter what they are. We would rather live with the discomfort of the thing eating us up from the inside rather then face the thing whatever it is and deal with it.

All families fight. But those that are true to themselves learn how to forgive, move forward and keep loving one another. At least in my world. I have had knock down drag out fights with cousins. Fists and angry words. But you know what I would give my life for any member of my family at any time. The kicker is I know within my family it would be the exact same for me. 

All families fight, again words of wisdom from my mother. " All families fight Lizzie, you aren't normal if you don't fight. We say what we need to say, cuss if you have to swing if it comes to that. Then it's done we move on as a family."

I kind of lost sight of that. You can say the horrible things to your family, the dark things that weigh you down. they are there to lift you up. Make you laugh and then we move forward, together. I didn't count on my family instead I tried to protect them from even me. 

It backfired they were there when I woke up the ones who mattered most my children. Phone calls from my extended family, for days and now weeks to remind me of who I am who we are and that I am never alone.

I am stronger because of my family who raised me and who I raised. It doesn't matter if 1000 people want to rain on my parade I am proud of the muck and shit I walked through to get to this point in my life.

I remember the only time in my entire life I went to jail........

I had just barely turned 17 thought I was grown.... you all know. We had snuck out the night before I was with my younger cousin, she was a little more free spirited then I was and I went home to my aunts house. She didn't, I heard my aunt say how much shit she was in so I called a friend of my big little brother to give me a ride. I found her. 

At a fucking house party in the middle of the day...... so was it was in Browning..... the friend came in with me looked around and promptly left my ass there. I would have done the same damn thing. I found her hanging with a bunch of kids in a room just as I found her the cops came. Now I am from Canada now and I didn't know the golden rule..... RUN.

Needless to say I wound up in the back of a cop car, trying unsuccessfully to talk my way out of the handcuffs they had me in. I was going to jail ..... oh shit my mom is going to kill my ass. I guess I wont be visiting in Browning for a while. 

We got into the Jail we didn't go into a cell we were in a holding room, me and the cousin. Her mom came in and began to let's just say give her some punishment. The cops finally ask auntie what you want to do with them .... "leave their asses in here." 

The little cousin she got released to another cousin who she was staying with..... My mom was in Canada, so I was SOL I spent the night in jail trying to save the cousin and she was sleeping in a warm bed. I was so mad but also so relieved she was ok.

Moral of the story sometimes we go through the worst shit to protect those we love and we get the shit end of the stick, BUT your family they will do the same for you. Everyone was so apologetic after this and I wasn't even mad. I had a cool jail story didn't get my ass beat by mom and it all worked out so in the end it was ok.

Why share that story to show how you have to let your guard down to save those who need it she didn't know she needed me to save her at the time years later she told me that the kids she was hanging with were messing with drugs. Maybe I saved her for a bit, either way you have to defend those who you love and I have always done that. 

Now those who find constant fault or blame you for their actions those are the kind of people you have to cut loose. I have had to in the last two weeks look deep into my life those around me and cut the ones who wouldn't walk half way to help me when I would cross mountains for them. This is the hardest thing I think but I remind myself these people in my life they also have my number can contact me on social media. But those that actively avoid me, or worse talk about things without even reaching out well those people don't really care and I have to basically put the same energy in as I am given. 

 Seeing people who you think highly of fall from grace is pretty hard. I was that person for a lot of people my people so trying to prove that it was moment of weakness in 48 years and not at all who I was or who I will be going forward. I have to remember this as those who want to gossip about it or try to hold one incident against me. These people will find fault in anything I do. We do not need these people and somehow the trash always removes themselves.

I have had a day of tears, but also of conversations that were not easy. Facing what happened the real reasons and trying to rebuild the trust and understanding is a day by day thing but the first step is always facing the hard things, and a big beef and cheder always helps.

Tomorrow is a new day can't promise it will be any easier to face anything but as long as you put in the work with those that matter they will be there to support you. The rest can kick several rocks.

Dear Me

 The payoff of 10 days of writing of self reflecting is that in the end you get to forgive yourself. Bonus points for having to write a letter to yourself in the past to forgive. One big thing I have learned is that forgiveness is never for the person or people who you feel have wronged you or hurt you, it is for you, when we carry hurt when we carry trauma in us it's like a rock we carry while trying to swim.

The more you hold on to the bigger the rock. Bigger the rock harder to swim. 

As a native person we all carry generational trauma, things totally out of our control things that happened to our parents and their parents. These things these past things are a result of so much done to our people and it is up to us, to start to break these cycles.

Up to me to break my family cycles.

As a parent I understand how native parents think how my mom thought, as my in laws thought. Our children were taken stolen abused, physically and mentally. Their identity was stripped and they tried to rebuild us into them. The only problem is our DNA is part of the land, our souls our spirits could never be broken completely. So they walked through the world wounded. These wounds were deep they are hard to overcome, because although we have had the tools to survive these tools also made us hard. We walk through this world a lot of us believing in the church now not because we truly believe, but because that believe was beat into us, like prisoners of war we complied to survive. I do not want to take the solace religion gives to anyone one but the trauma bond our people have with the church is not one built out of love of the word but of fear of what will happen if we don't attend. Our language, mannerisms, and the way we raise our families are all a result of what happened at those buildings by people whom we were forced to trust.

Because of this underlying issue because of this we hold our families closer, we try to prevent hurt, yet we are not affectionate, or really understanding. We have an entire generation of children who are now parents raised by those who attended the very schools designed to assimilate or eliminate which ever came first. Tis a very strange world we live in we are the children who were taught not to embrace who we were, this was out of fear. I shouldn't say we as my mom didn't grow up here in Canada so she was more vocal more willing to talk about who we are. My father how ever did. He suffered the most horrible of stories of course that is his story to tell not mine. Because of this he was always more distant more isolated. 

So I as most parents said to myself I will never be them, however there are things that have seeped into my life. I hold to hard to long. I try to control every situation, but I also try to fix every situation. My fight or flight is not even for me it's for my children, and my family. Protection.

Part of the reason I fell so hard is I didn't have control over what was being said, what was happening. Truth or facts didn't matter my brain couldn't compute it.

I need to accept that I am not a savior I am not perfect and most of all people are going to talk to attack and not like me. I have to just be confident in who I am, accept who I am faults and all and let go of what is out of my control.

So easy right......

That is the problem I keep going back to and don't know if I will ever truly be the person I should be, but I am working on it.

Acceptance is part of healing it's like in the serenity prayer that addicts quote.

"accept the things I can not change and know the difference."

So where does this leave me. Well truthfully this dive into self reflection has brought me to trying to solve bigger issues with my people I think that is a Coping mechanism for me why focus on the small stuff when there are these bigger problems don't be so selfish help your people. My mothers voice. I think that is how she coped. She couldn't fix her husband so lets just fix all our people get them rights teach them about everything and dedicate your life to them. Start a College, get people educated then they will fight for themselves.

Something my mom said in her later years while she was doing a study for a tourism center for our people was right now your story your history is being told by people who never lived it they are making money off of who they think we are. Do you want some middle aged white man telling the world who the Blackfoot people are or do you want to own your own history. 

I guess that imprinted on me pretty heavily as I still am looking to help our people rise back up, sadly the ones holding us back are ourselves. In that sense the experiment of Kill the Indian save the child worked. we do not think we have the power or knowledge to guide ourselves in to the next century.

But we do.

My healing has started but my need to help my people see themselves out of the darkness is always on my mind. So I am going to work to better this world for my grand daughter, for her generation. Through all the horrors our people have gone through we have to keep on swimming. So I am letting the rocks that are holding me down go. I can't change every person but I can make me a better version and that is what I am doing.

The anger and hurt that have been handed to me in so many ways by so many people some because they just didn't know better and those who needed me to hurt to make themselves feel better. I also am forgiving myself for not being the best mom. wife. sister, daughter, friend, and family member. I am forgiving myself for being a product of who I was raised to be but also for who I became.

We are warriors. Stoic, fighters.

All of these things designed to make us resilient, to make us survive have also hindered us. We don't believe in showing weakness, we do not talk about the things that make us uncomfortable. The street people, the people struggling with addiction, they are there because of this. When you push the shit down and just keep going you will need something to help you cope. More proof that a simple switch can't be turned on and off. 

Now I can be an advocate for help, counselling, therapy, medication when needed. all of these things along with finding your sense of purpose those are the tools that are going to help us.

I will end with this my biggest hero was my grandma, She worked her entire life with those same street people getting people sober, helping them, there were days where we would drive around with her giving food or jackets to the bums. She would say if they are hungry give them food if they are cold give them a jacket, but money that gives them booze. I have taught my kids this simple life lesson. I so wanted to be her as a child. I would sit in her office and watch her work. She did carry a secret well it wasn't that secret she could help every struggling person in town except the one she went home to every night. Now as a wife I can see the pain she must have felt the hopelessness, but still she rose everyday went to work and did her part. She is still my hero and I aim to be her everyday.

Forgive, let it go and move on 

With this the 10 days are done.  I will continue to write but hopefully my outlook and my thoughts will be on the happier side. either way thank you without you also I would not be here today. 

Columbus Who.......

 I know this may seem a bit off topic but really this "holiday" and who we really are really does fall into my healing process. So here I go today I choose to honor my mother who is such a huge part of who I am today even when I do not like to admit it to myself. Every choice she made with me or for me has shaped who I am.

From my earliest memory I have known who I am. I was almost slapped in the face with it. My mother graduated in 1969, she was right in the middle of the hippie movement in the white world but in the Indian world it was time of being fed up, drum beats of knowledge and resistance. Because of this she never sugarcoated anything about my race, my sex, and my place in this world. Now don't get me wrong as a child it was a lot of eye rolls and "I KNOWS". But now that I am an adult I find myself giving the same gusto she did when I speak on who I am and more importantly why I am.

As a female Native I was born with 2 strikes against me in a 3 strike world. "you are a woman, so automatically in the western world you are not equal to don't you ever forget that, and as a native woman no one cares in the western world you are even less than." I have molded my life around that fact. In the news today it is even more blaringly apparent. The western world will move mountains to find any girl unless she is native. I could go deeper into this mindset but for the purpose of this blog I think we will skate past this one. 

From about the age of 5 I can remember learning about wounded knee AIM, the fight of all native people, why did the tribes in California take back Alcatraz? And why the Fuck should I care? Let's start with my people.

Before it was widely accepted I learned about the Blackfoot Confederacy as a whole. I have never seen our Confederacy as 4 separated tribes but one people divided because we could not be conquered as a whole. "The Blackfoot are warriors Liz." 

Eye Roll

I learned of the battles we fought, but also the systematic genocide that we have been subjected to since that Spaniard got lost at sea and thought he found India. There are things that are in history books and then there are things that we learn because our elders and their elders spoke of them. We have a complete history of our people in the words and actions that is embedded in our DNA. 

I heard of Starvation Winter. something that to this day is not in any history book. The truth of it, the torture that was inflicted on our people, all in an attempt to starve us, poison us, eliminate the Indian problem. 

Since 1491 we have been assisting the lost tourists. Because at our core no matter the tribe, we are a people who help each other help those around us. More locally the border towns namely here on Blood Reserve, have lost sight on all the assistance the Blackfoot and more so the Kainai people have given them. That too is rewritten. 

Every event where we as a race helped another it has been met with the other party wanting more taking more and then shunning us.

and yet we survive and yet we prosper, we are still here in spite of the continued onslaught of hate and distrust. 

So today when Canada celebrates not going hungry because of our people and America celebrates a tourist getting lost, I celebrate the resilience of my people and the knowledge my mother handed down.

and yet still I rise

now eat your turkey or find your sales and keep on keeping on being brown

What's Love Got To Do With It??

 Well I made it TWO freaking weeks of writing my thoughts ramblings and all that Jazz. I managed not to name names point fingers or displace blame onto others.

Am I cured? of what I am not sure but no I am most defiantly not cured of all that broke me, I still have the thoughts no matter how hard I try, you replay parts of your life or your entire life. Doing so has however made me remember who I am. 

Who I am without saying I am his wife, their mom, your friend, the person who deserved to be destroyed.

No I was not born of money, but I was taught to work hard, out work everyone. There are 3 keys to success in life knowledge, hard work, and personality. I have all those things with or without anyone beside me so it's time to start thinking like I know who I am.

I have been doing so much self reflection, looking inside myself. Finding out what makes Liz tick, well it seems there is so much more to me then the outside. Yes my insides are still a mess, but that is what makes me human.

I had a very strong memory of my childhood, my big little brother and I growing up were for lack of a better term shit kids. we tormented each other the neighborhood and all of our older cousins. I always had to bounce shit off of him from being a little monster right up to today. Somehow nothing is undoable if I first talk to him about it. He has always been able to see inside, and just know. I try to be that same thing for him but I know deep down he has always been stronger and I just always fall in line with him. 

Well the day of my incident, he called me a few hours before, it was a normal enough call but he was fishing asking me questions and kept going back to how are you. I would answer like I always do fine it is what it is what did you need from me. I never imagined that so much would be dumped on my head in just a few hours after that I didn't have the strength to overcome it. I would never imagine I would ever be that low. 

strangely talking to him this week we had both had the same thought we both thought of my mom and how she felt what she went through and he said I never want to see you like that. She forgot who she was and let the negative win over and over don't you do that Liz. and I promised him but more importantly promised myself never again.

NEVER AGAIN!!

So where does that leave me now. Firstly I started writing again and that is a win. Like I said at the beginning of this journey I have always fancied myself a writer so I think I am going to keep this Blog up, and I am going to give stories from my life hopefully they will a bit more on the chipper side HOWEVER life is life so you never know. Secondly I am going to continue therapy. It is helping. 

But most importantly I am never going to hang my identity on anyone but myself. I am a mother wife sister friend and community member but above all of those things I am me, every hurdle I have overcome, every time I have stumbled I and I alone has picked me up and kept going. This time is no different there is just farther to climb back up.

I can do it and right now I feel better then I did yesterday, and I can actually go about my day without tears. That in itself is such as good thing. I was never one for tears or outward emotion. Don't get me wrong I am passionate about things, speak loudly, stand my ground if I believe in something I can defend that. but I am not emotional, I never have let emotions get in the way of logic before this so having to figure out how to balance my emotions and the logic of what is right and wrong, that is what I am figuring our right now. 

I also have given up on trying to control every situation, my children, and my husband all have lives that they need to live, my involvement will be what they need not what I want. 

I also am not always the only answer. that is the hardest one to swallow. I have always studied every situation to ensure that I know I KNOW. nut now I need to let people figure out things on their own.

That statement is the scariest thing I have thought or said. But I can not carry the load of everyone anymore. Mentally or physically I can't do it so hello this is the new and maybe improved me. 

If you know me personally and I seem aloof or distant just know I am not I am just finding my footing and it will all be ok eventually.

I may have damaged my heart but it is still there and the love I have for my true friends and family will never waiver, never change. 

Until tomorrow I everyone.