The Middle

Hello! And welcome to another blog post by moi!
Before we dive into "The Middle," let's first reflect on some of the past!

October

• Like the first month of fall, a lot of my energies were being spent primarily on my position at Great Oaks during the weeks and at Emmaus during the weekends. 
• On October 9th, I had a Doctor's appointment and so I went home the previous evening and decided to make impromptu plans to catch lunch and catch-up with my dear friend, Heidi! It was nice to visit Yale's Divinity School, hear what she's been up to, and share space with her. I love her so dearly!
• In the first two weeks of October, I got the opportunity to run the election process for the Student Council and to meet my newly elected officers. I'm thankful for the ability to watch these young people grow and learn within leadership development. For the rest of the month, our efforts were dedicated to readying ourselves for Fall Spirit Week & Homecoming (More details about both in my next post)
• I started to explore a little bit into Powerlifting workouts, which I'm thankful for my AmeriCorps Ops manager and for Crunch Fitness in Stratford for helping me with!
• My phone screen broke toward the end of the month, which was extremely unpleasant. I was without it for 10 days and it really set me on to this feeling of, not only, dependence on the device, but also unhinged-ness from not having it. There was quite a bit of hassle between cancelled appointments to fix it and eventually I ended up receiving a new device. I'm thankful that the problem could have been easily solved after the hassle, and thankful for the little bit of extra time I was allowed to reflect and deal with my phone's missing presence. 

Now... the reason why I'm not delving into November quite yet is because I want to save it for a future blog post! In keeping with the commitment to myself and the people who read my blog, I want to be able to complete 12 blog posts for 2019.

Now... this is post 9 of 2019... meaning I would have 3 more after this. I believe I can do it!

I'm hoping to have them release on the following days: 

Saturday, December 14th

Saturday, December 28th & 

Tuesday, December 31st

So... look out for those! I think that these four posts, altogether, will contain great reflections to close out the year!

Now... what's The Middle all about?

I actually first thought about this post a while ago, when thinking of what I was going to do as a theme for 2019. There are time in which I felt like I naturally fit into the Middle of certain relationships or predicaments, or situations, but this "The Middle" is focused on two things: generations & family... interesting, right?

This will be discussed much more in my next blog post, but I also think it's great to reflect upon this considering the Thanksgiving I just had. :) 

Generations

I'm going to start here because I think that it's a little bit more light-hearted than the rest of the post. 

So, if you follow along with any discourse on social media, you would know quite a bit about generations, right?

In the 20th Century, there are 6 generations of people born: 

(Information taken from: http://fourhooks.com/marketing/the-generation-guide-millennials-gen-x-y-z-and-baby-boomers-art5910718593/)

1. The Greatest Generation (1901-1924): 

The Greatest Generation are people who have experienced the Great Depression and World War II in their adulthood. They are best characterized by having strong models of teamwork to overcome and progress. These are people who grew up without modern conveniences like refrigerators, electricity, and air-condition, as well all life without airplanes, radio, and television.

2. The Silent Generation/Builders/Maturists (1924-1945):

These are people that came of age during postwar-time. Their time was dominated by jazz, swing, and movies like Gone With the Wind. It was commonly understood that children in this generation, should be seen and not heard and conformity to social norms was largely encouraged. Both this generation and the Greatest, occupy roughly 3% of jobs in America. 

3. Baby Boomers- our faves- (1946-1964):

Named baby boomers because of the significant spike in births after World War II. These are the people to made two-income households common, came of age when television was becoming an every-household commodity, and became more accepting and tolerant of divorce. My grandparents are part of this generation. 

4. Generation X, or the Forgotten Generation (1961-1980): 

Kids who grew up with divorced and/or career-driven parents. Most can remember being in school without computers because they were introduced when this generation was in middle or high school. They have a higher sense of commitment to themselves as individuals and usually marry after long cohabitation, but quick to divorce. They experienced the emergence of music videos and hip-hop as well as the increasing prevalence of brand labels and names. When it comes to technology, they are referred to as Digital Immigrants. My uncles and mother are part of this generation. 

5. Millennials or Generation Y (~1980-late 1990's): 

American sociologist Kathleen Shaputis labeled this generation as the Peter Pan generation because of the perceived tendency to delay some "steps into adulthood" like careers, marriage, and housing, when compared to older generations. Millennials came of age at a time of rapid technological change, globalization, and economic disruption. The first generation to be digital natives: an affinity for technology shapes how they shop and interact with the world; the first generation with unlimited access to information, fast and immediate information processing, and globalized communication. 

6. Generation Z (post-late 1990's): 

The first generation to have completely never known a world without computers and cell phones. They are called digital integrators because of they way they have integrated technology seamlessly into their lives. They are globally focused, visual engaged, educationally transformed, and socially defined. A lot are referred to as "technoholics" because they are entirely dependent on information technology. 

So... yeah. 

Some data will tell you that the cutoff dates for Millennials & Generation Z is 1995... others use 1998... still others use the turn of the century. 

Either way, it seems as if there are a key number of years that can be dubbed the tail-end of one generation or the beginning of the other... 1995-1998, especially.
Hence, why I feel like I'm in the Middle. 

The website that provided me with the information used above, also has a chart of traits that seem unique to the generations, and I just wanted to do a sort of Venn Diagram-table-thing with how I identify: 

it's a screengrab so plz ignore the supposed misspelling of "technololic"

I feel as if some major reasons why I identify with some more millennial traits is due to being raised in a mixed household of myself, my Gen X mom, and my Boomer grandparents and the pace at which they advanced technology within our home. 

We had dial-up internet until September 2010.... after I had already made... a... Facebook? And iPhones had been a thing for 3 years

But yeah... I found this interesting to think about and look it. Maybe y'all can help me think of more things that would help me identify with Gen Z, or maybe more with Millennials? Who knows!

Family

Thank you for indulging my want to unpack something so trivial and unimportant. Now it's time for the juicy, meaty bits. 

So... I feel like when I'm saying I identify as "The Middle" in my family, people would assume the relationships I'm talking about are between my parents. This, however, is not what I'm going to unpack.. simply because I think I have focused on all that I'm able to (knowledge-wise and emotional-depth-wise) for right now. 

Instead I'm referring to the position in my family. 

My grandparents were both born in the mid-40's. They are in their mid 70's right now. 

My uncles were born in 1970 (Chris) & 1972 (Warren)- so they're 49 & 47 right now. 

My mom was born in 1974 so she's 45 until next month!

I was born in 1997 and will turn 22 tomorrow. 

My little 1st cousins were born in 2005 (Genesis), 2009 (Valentino), & 2012 (Abbott) so they're 14, 10, & 7 right now. 

When talking about my family, "The Middle" is not only this position of being the oldest cousin and (obviously) younger than my mom and her brothers, but also occupying this weird transition period of having gone to college and emerged as an adult and navigating what that means in my family dynamic. 

Being in the Middle puts me in this space where I remember things that my little cousins won't or can't, and also in a place where I wasn't around for the relationships that forged between the two generations that came before me. 

Being in the Middle means fully knowing my grandparents as best as I could before more complete senility and a stroke in my grandfather and before dementia and breast cancer in my grandmother. 

It means going for drives with both or either grandparent. Abbott has never experienced this. 

It means remembering when my grandmother still taught at Fitch High School- being taken there from time to time in my childhood. None of my cousins were alive when she still worked there. 

It means having to be caught up in some of the drama with my grandparents... having watched my house go from one where friends could come over, it always smelled like something was cooking, and it was a place where I felt like home to a consistently aggressive and belligerent grandmother and having to reinforce the, correct, idea of not letting my grandfather drive. 

Being in the Middle means being able to go on yearly trips to Texas with my grandparents. 

It means I got to meet all my grandmother's siblings before Uncle Willie Lee and Aunt Annette died. It means meeting my great-grandparents before they died. 

Being in the Middle means developing a sense of self-awareness and self-understanding, inclusive of the emotional traumas that my grandparents have caused, but at a time in which communicating and restructuring the relationship between myself and them is impossible because of their senility. 

Being in the Middle means watching the rise and fall of my uncle's relationships with the mothers of their children and the rise and fall of my parents relationship. It means knowing who my father was and his impact, but not as exactly as my uncles or my mom do. 

Being in the Middle means growing up and becoming an adult before relatives are ready to acknowledge and accept that fact. It means bearing the weight of role model to the younger ones while holding the weight of establishing who I am in my family dynamic as a young adult, and no longer a child. 

Being in the Middle means being fundamentally misunderstood by my uncles, who claim to love me, but have done little work in establishing a relationship with me in the absence of my father. It means having to advocate for myself and who I am at every family gathering. It means being disrespected. It means challenging authority that I've been terrified to challenge, because I was taught to respect it. 

Being in the Middle means being the most independent individual in my family. It allows me to develop my sense of self apart from the family, including who I know God to be. 

Being in the Middle means watching my little cousins grow up; knowing what life was like without them and with them, a few days after each were born. It means being able to influence them to break from the poor communication habits of my family, to break from the dysfunction, and anger. 

Being in the Middle means being the first cousin to go through life, so that I can help the others do it a little more smoothly. 

Being in the Middle is both a place of hardship and privilege. Ultimately, I'm thankful for the place that I have in my family, for my ability to consistently work toward a place of healing and love, and for the path I'm going to forge ahead with that focus. 

Thank you for reading.