we call truth.

the older i get the more i realize that i am my father's child. my mother has always told me this; i have his attitude, his biting sarcasm.....even the cleft in his chin.

last week my parents went to visit my dad's family in north carolina. we don't see much of them because my dad doesn't really get along with his brothers and sisters, and both of his parents have passed. however, i've spent the majority of my life believing that it was everyone else's fault that i didn't know an entire half of my family. not because i believed everything that my father said, or that he was the most upright and truthful man i have ever known - believe me, he is not. but it's the only perspective i've ever known, and i never really bothered to find out more.

it wasn't until the past year when i've begun to physically and emotionally and spiritually feel myself growing into an adult, that i've been so curious as to what my patriarchs are all about. so......back to north carolina. our entire family was invited to the wedding of one of my dad's cousins, who i have never met and my mother has never met and my dad hasn't seen since his childhood.......my parents were the only ones to attend, and i'm so disappointed in myself for not taking the opportunity.

the stories my mother told me about the interactions and conversations she and my father had with his family almost made me weep. i am them, i thought finally. this is where i come from; this is where i belong. i consider myself to "have a brain" as my close friends and i call it. untrusting of the media, disillusioned by the government, unbelieving of the so-called "american dream". we are out of patience with the majority of the world, who follow popular culture like sheep, and have no free-thinking cell in their body. it's terrifying, and when it's time that the revolution time finally arrives, there is going to be a very, VERY small majority of people who will be physically, emotionally, and spiritually prepared to fend for themselves. what some call a conspiracy theorist, or just plain cooky off my fucking rocker, i call truth. we call truth.

so it came as less of a surprise and more of a revelation when my parents came back from their weekend in north carolina, telling me tales of my cooky "conspiracy theorist" cousins...... they're pretty crazy, is what my mother told me. they are mine, is what i told myself. it's like knowing your whole life that you are adopted, and finally meeting a part of your birth family for the first time. i felt refreshed; invigorated. like what i believed and the path that i was on was not by mistake - this was, in fact, who i was born to be and my very own father had pried me and my family as far away from those "nuts" as he could. but he couldn't hide them from us forever. and not that i know.............oh, just like every other piece of knowledge one acquires........once you know the truth, how do you ever live your life the same way again? you can't.......that's the answer. you cannot go on any other way. you have to speak the truth......you have to SPEAK UP. even if your voice shakes. even if no one wants to hear it........you must speak. no one will hear your silence. ignorance is poison.