Reconnecting the Strands of DNA #connection #origins #ancestry

On By Alethea KehasIn Memoir, Reflections
Dubrovnik Croatia. Image by Ivan Ivankovic from Pixabay

Lately, my thoughts about connection have turned to roots. In particular, the roots of ancestry. This is where grief is now pointing me, and I find my eyes eager to fill with the loss of separation when I think of where I have come from. I used to believe it didn’t matter. Later, I believed that perhaps the longing I felt inside of me came from past lives. I think, in part, it does, but that is not the longing that pulls the sorrow from my lids these days. It is the longing to find my roots in this life.

At the end of summer, I will turn 50. Instead of a party, I have chosen to travel. For many week I have contemplated where, even though the longing pulls me to Croatia. Beside me, I can see the ghost of my paternal grandmother nodding her head. Come home, she whispers, Come home to your origins. She is wearing a black dress, as though she is mourning with me, but I get the sense through her smile that this mourning can become a rebirth.

When I search for flights and places to stay, the old gnarled fingers of doubt take hold of joy and start shaking their habits at me. It is too expensive. Be practical. It is too long of a journey.

But, it is my choice to decide to shed the habits of lack that have been with me since birth. It is my choice to rebirth a different belief.

When I think about this return to origins, I think of how I used to believe these origins were never mine to claim. A foolish thought, perhaps, but the circumstances of my life have always told me otherwise. Not ever feeling as though I truly belonged to an extended family, even though I had three sides that I could, in some way claim, has taken a toll on my sense of connection. It has pulled up my roots and left me feeling a thirst that drains my eyes.

It has taken me some time to realize why I no long feel the urgent pull to escape to the ancient lands of Albion to find this connection I am longing for. It is not that the wild places of magic do not call to me still, but they are not the missing pieces I need to reassemble at this time. I need to, I am realizing at this half-century point of my life, rebuild the structure of my DNA. I need to weave the strands back into unity. I need to fall in love with my origins, and realize my origins have never truly abandoned me.

Come home, we are waiting for your return.

So for now, this is a post that waits to be continued. I am not going to question why my paternal side of origin is the one calling for home the loudest right now, because it feels right. It feels like a coming home.

24 thoughts on “Reconnecting the Strands of DNA #connection #origins #ancestry”

  4. Different places have called to me through my life, and recently some are “ancestral lands”, though I am very much an American mutt whose ancestors have been here for 300+ years. But I do understand that strand of DNA wanting to reconnect… I hope you do get to Croatia this year 🙂

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  7. If you do choose to go to Croatia, you will not be disappointed. I visited in 1987, when Yugoslavia was still in existence, shortly before those subsequent terrible events. It was unbelievably beautiful, and the people were so kind and warm and generous, it was a terrible shock to watch what then happened. Follow your heart – our hearts are seldom wrong 🙂

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    1. It’s interesting how strong of a presence she has become in my life, in particular since I started writing and healing. So much different from our relationship when she was in physical form. I am looking forward to seeing the journey take form.

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