Where do you come from?

Last updated on April 4th, 2021 at 11:22 am

“Sometimes it gets rough
Comin’ from where I’m from, I’m from
Times got hard
Comin’ from where I’m from, I’m from
Sometimes you gotta walk to work
Comin’ from where I’m from, I’m from
Sometimes you gotta do a little dirt
Comin’ from where I’m from, I’m from”

–Anthony Hamilton, “Comin’ From Where I’m From”

So my pre-marital counselling classes started today—one part of me sees it as a necessary task to do before the wedding, just another thing to check off on the list to make sure that the wedding goes well. That part of me is ambivalent, as it’s sure that it will be informative, but will require an investment of time—a commodity that’s increasingly difficult to come across these days. The other part of me is a little worried, to be honest. The counselling comes with its share of homework, and today’s was one that had me confronting something that I’m neither happy about nor comfortable with:

I DON’T KNOW MUCH ABOUT MY FAMILY HISTORY.

Maybe it’s just part of Jamaican culture (I’m definitely not the person to speak on this authoritatively), but there’s not a lot shared about my history. I know bits and pieces, and if I ever really sat down and took a look at things, I’m sure I’d be able to accurately piece things together, but that’s just not the way it is right now. One of the things we needed to do for the first class was construct a genogram so we could better analyze our histories and what experiences and behaviours might be passed down through the generations. Yeah—I’ve tried my hand at making family trees before, but to realize that you really don’t know that much at all about a good number of family members? Eye-opening.

The pre-marital class itself went pretty well—lots of sharing and swapping stories between Sarah and myself and our husband-and-wife pastoral team—all in all it was candid and useful. I think that a lot of crappy marriages could be averted by having someone outside of the couple to really take a good look at the couple, their strengths, their weaknesses, whether or not they’ll really work out, I guess. It was good that we’ve already talked about a lot of the stuff that we covered in the initial lesson, but in the conversation we had on the questions in the book last night, we did uncover some new insights about our families, ourselves, and the future we’re looking to have.

So that’s one thing—if you’re getting married, pre-marital classes are what’s up.

Secondly, if you don’t know your family history, maybe it’s time to interview family members. Maybe it’s time to have those potentially uncomfortable conversations to find out where you really come from. I know I still have a lot of ground to cover, and it would probably be better for me to do it while the majority of my grandparents are still alive!

When I learn how to use Mathematica better, I swear I’m going to learn how to make the best family trees EVER.

Not much else to report otherwise:

• Had to uninstall Google Chrome because it was causing my Mac to stall excessively for some unknown reason, so I’m back to using Firefox—not really a bad thing, though
• Tomorrow will be another one of those marathon fun nights—we’ll see if I survive!
• I just figured out a good name for my decluttering mission—The 2K11 24/7: The Quest for Less – oh man. I’m loving it!

ENOUGH BANTER. I’m going to call it an early night—get some of that rest I need so badly!

Goodnight ladies and gents and kids of all ages! I’ll see you tomorrow for some more awesomeness 😊

–case p.

25/365