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As is common for me when I visit my family home in Florida, I'm bitten by the writing bug.
All of the qualia of my first memorable home -- the same one I was raised in since I was just a little over one year old -- comes flooding back, and practically everything I observe, touch, or interact with is filled with immediate nuance and significance from previous experiences.
In a way, it's a little like being otherkin while being otherkin (yo dawg...). Much of what I can call up to memory feels like it's from another life. The feelings are similar, and the memories are warm and familiar, but they feel as though they happened to a different "me" -- one that reacted to them in very different ways than the me of today.
In part, it's experience. Before leaving Florida to live in Washington state, I had seen very little of the world beyond a small collection of other states, some of the Bahamas, and some of Europe. I was pretty naive, and that naivete figured into a rather deep local bias for the culture to which I was exposed.
Standard fare, except Miami culture is a bit... bad, for the exceedingly-nerdy introvert. It's difficult for me to articulate the precise factors responsible -- perhaps a combination of extreme heat, humidity-enhanced mold, and a culture of deeply charisma-based meritocracy -- but the local culture is very strongly anti-intellectual, and anti-creative for activities that strongly cross perceived gender norms.*
This was difficult for me, because my heritage was very polarized. On my father's side, strict gender roles dominated much of his family's history. On my mother's side, a more liberal, gender-ambiguous stance was held for social acceptability. This instilled in me what I can only describe as deep existential confusion as I struggled to make sense of diametrically-opposed social views in the home, while being a creative, in an environment strongly repressive to highly creative and artistic males.**
This ensured that, for purely social reasons, I kept my creativity confined to my bedroom. I also kept it to what meager art supplies I could squirrel away, computer included.
Now, not all of that is bad. After all, I learned to be shockingly efficient with very little in the way of traditional media, tools, and personal space, while finding newer and better ways to hide my actions, interests, and behaviors among the ordinary. Years went by. And, when I finally moved, I brought these patterns with me. It was all quite isolating.
In understanding what it means to me when I say I feel like a completely different person, I mean it in the sense of a caged bird that, once freed, regards their old home as such a small thing. It is to say that I've transcended that previous, isolating existence, and returning to it brings a re-evaluation of old motives and habits within this newer mental context. It also brings more than its fair share of simple nostalgia.
Thinking back to these experiences, I honestly believe I did the best by myself. When I'm away from my family house, I constantly find ways to fault my old patterns of behavior as well-meaning but ineffective. My return trips home, meanwhile, underscore that at the time, not only was I doing the most reasonable things for myself: I was building myself up into who I am today.
Still, it feels almost dualistic and dichotomic, this tangible feeling of being home in the physical sense, with this constant mental and emotional overlay from my previous Floridian life. Much of it is even exceedingly positive, and for that, I know precisely where to look.
It is fitting, then, that I just watched my sister graduate today.*** Watching her graduate from my own alma mater brought its own share of nostalgia. Nostalgia from a previous life that I've chosen to build upon, while the touchstones, experiences, objects, and people that I love are still here.
* In the suburbs. Miami Beach is a completely different, and unambiguously fabulous, matter.
** Perhaps I should back up a bit and explain why that last part matters.
By my very nature, I'm a creative. Naturally, this expresses in some rather flamboyant displays of color, pattern, and thought out of me. Yet, unlike some in my newer, draconic peer group, I am not gender-fluid: I identify strongly as male. I am species-fluid in my identity, but that's a subject for another post. I'm also still trying to figure out my orientation. Again, another post, or possibly in the comments.
*** The graduation itself went very well, by the way. I don't feel comfortable posting the details on this journal, save to say that the ceremony was very similar to when I, myself, graduated and that I'm very proud of my younger sister.
All of the qualia of my first memorable home -- the same one I was raised in since I was just a little over one year old -- comes flooding back, and practically everything I observe, touch, or interact with is filled with immediate nuance and significance from previous experiences.
In a way, it's a little like being otherkin while being otherkin (yo dawg...). Much of what I can call up to memory feels like it's from another life. The feelings are similar, and the memories are warm and familiar, but they feel as though they happened to a different "me" -- one that reacted to them in very different ways than the me of today.
In part, it's experience. Before leaving Florida to live in Washington state, I had seen very little of the world beyond a small collection of other states, some of the Bahamas, and some of Europe. I was pretty naive, and that naivete figured into a rather deep local bias for the culture to which I was exposed.
Standard fare, except Miami culture is a bit... bad, for the exceedingly-nerdy introvert. It's difficult for me to articulate the precise factors responsible -- perhaps a combination of extreme heat, humidity-enhanced mold, and a culture of deeply charisma-based meritocracy -- but the local culture is very strongly anti-intellectual, and anti-creative for activities that strongly cross perceived gender norms.*
This was difficult for me, because my heritage was very polarized. On my father's side, strict gender roles dominated much of his family's history. On my mother's side, a more liberal, gender-ambiguous stance was held for social acceptability. This instilled in me what I can only describe as deep existential confusion as I struggled to make sense of diametrically-opposed social views in the home, while being a creative, in an environment strongly repressive to highly creative and artistic males.**
This ensured that, for purely social reasons, I kept my creativity confined to my bedroom. I also kept it to what meager art supplies I could squirrel away, computer included.
Now, not all of that is bad. After all, I learned to be shockingly efficient with very little in the way of traditional media, tools, and personal space, while finding newer and better ways to hide my actions, interests, and behaviors among the ordinary. Years went by. And, when I finally moved, I brought these patterns with me. It was all quite isolating.
In understanding what it means to me when I say I feel like a completely different person, I mean it in the sense of a caged bird that, once freed, regards their old home as such a small thing. It is to say that I've transcended that previous, isolating existence, and returning to it brings a re-evaluation of old motives and habits within this newer mental context. It also brings more than its fair share of simple nostalgia.
Thinking back to these experiences, I honestly believe I did the best by myself. When I'm away from my family house, I constantly find ways to fault my old patterns of behavior as well-meaning but ineffective. My return trips home, meanwhile, underscore that at the time, not only was I doing the most reasonable things for myself: I was building myself up into who I am today.
Still, it feels almost dualistic and dichotomic, this tangible feeling of being home in the physical sense, with this constant mental and emotional overlay from my previous Floridian life. Much of it is even exceedingly positive, and for that, I know precisely where to look.
It is fitting, then, that I just watched my sister graduate today.*** Watching her graduate from my own alma mater brought its own share of nostalgia. Nostalgia from a previous life that I've chosen to build upon, while the touchstones, experiences, objects, and people that I love are still here.
* In the suburbs. Miami Beach is a completely different, and unambiguously fabulous, matter.
** Perhaps I should back up a bit and explain why that last part matters.
By my very nature, I'm a creative. Naturally, this expresses in some rather flamboyant displays of color, pattern, and thought out of me. Yet, unlike some in my newer, draconic peer group, I am not gender-fluid: I identify strongly as male. I am species-fluid in my identity, but that's a subject for another post. I'm also still trying to figure out my orientation. Again, another post, or possibly in the comments.
*** The graduation itself went very well, by the way. I don't feel comfortable posting the details on this journal, save to say that the ceremony was very similar to when I, myself, graduated and that I'm very proud of my younger sister.
