SOBRIETY was important to me, now it is important to me again... Growing up around it and seeing all the "grown ups" drinking and partying. It was fun until it got to our bedtime.
So many times I would be laying there hearing all the muffled mumbles sometimes they would be getting louder and louder then crash bang boom. Then cries and yea just straight fear of what's going on and if I go check what's gonna happen to me?
When I was a teenager I wasnt the one where you would find me at a party, I was the one working, first job was babysitting at 12, then I got a job in grade 9. Then I worked all the way through highschool graduation. Taking the summers off to go live with my Norway House family. Going to Norway House where I could be a kid, not worry.
Even then I didn't drink. I remember I got peer pressured into going to a party (let's just say I had to lie to get there, had to pretend where I slept, then in the morning (I thought I fooled them) my dad picked me up and I was hungover. (Never drank again) Until I was 19 years old and I went to work on an island for the first time, this was also the first time I went off on my own. No one knew me or my last name.
I was nervous and scared, peer pressure hit once again and I accepted that beer. Now i don't know if anyone's worked on an island, not much to do except hang with the people you work with and if they drink, get high chances they will ask you to do it.
I didn't want to be stuck up or anything so I started drinking (I was only a stoner up until then) I ended up working there for 4 summers and I drank that whole time. I gained so much weight as well.
I left there and went to work at another island. And just continued the drinking. (I wasn't happy I was just having fun.)
Then I meant my kids father, and we drank, we became parents and I didn't want to be my parents.
I was raised by functioning alcoholics. I never wanted to drink because I seen what it did too "grown ups" now I was that "grown up".
I wanted us to be the parents I wanted growing up.
I thought about my story with alcohol, and it was a relationship I never wanted, and peer pressure made me have this relationship.
Now the peer pressure I feel, was from my inner child, the pressure to not give my kids the same memories as I do.
To stop all the intergenerational trauma that was brought down on us, we have a path.
This is just my story, every story is different unique and important to ourselves.
Residental Schools took that away from us.
But back in 2021 they found 215 kids and continue to find more. I also got found.
This is for the kids, the kids that couldn't be kids (inner child) the ones that needs to be heard and the ones that their childhood was ripped away by no fault of their own. (It wasn't your fault they hurt you, you gotta forgive the pain you caused cause you were hurting)
I believed in myself more than once on my life path and the ancestors were so excited to be heard. It opened my world up. I broke down in February, but I cried out to my Grandma and she ran for help. I received the help, the help that I needed and deserved. It was to Walk the Red Road.
Then as I walked it, I got to pick up things I want in a bowl and kept all the fun and sparkle in this world that was dimmed out by others fears. I can't walk your road, but I'm working on a sharing circle, to make everyone's path a little easier to walk when you want to walk it.
So together we will be okay. Only together we can stand and get our culture back. By giving when we can, never taking away from someone else's plate.
Together we can be the voice as a nation for the land, for our ancestors.
