Thanksgiving Thoughts...A Week Later

This year has brought about many changes, some not the most fun, and some completely positively life changing. As this year comes to an end, I leave it behind as one of the best and most important years of my life.  At the end of the day I would not change a thing that I experienced, or did this past year.  I worked hard, and was honest with myself about the direction of that career choice.  I fell in and out of love.  I was true to myself, and I faced one of the biggest fears I had.  I met many new people, and strengthened the relationships that were already important to me.  I gave back, and found a greater purpose. I learned to embrace my talents, and show them off.  I found my voice and then I shared it.  Overall as I have said a million times before I feel incredibly lucky to have this life, to live with the people I do, to be surrounded by love and support, and to be given the room and freedom to express myself and grow freely to become the person I am.  This past Thanksgiving was the best of my life, I was with the people (and dogs) that I love dearly, and as I feel every year so much to be grateful for, but this year was even better because I had some deep questions answered.

Fun Fall Picture/ Style

Baking the day before Thankgiving

My KitchenAid Hanukkah Gift
AKA Thanksgiving Helper

Pies! From Top Left-Clockwise
Key Lime Moose Tart
Pumpkin Banana Moose Tart
Apple Caramel Wine Crunch Pie
Pumpkin Pecan Pie

My Thanksgiving look including nails, and the table setting I made the day of, including place cards with personal notes on the back.

Skype the Game Changer

I finally spoke to my birth family tonight!

I was Facebook chatting with my sister using a translate app on my phone the last few weeks off and on.  We scheduled a time to speak on the phone last sunday, but after trying a few times and almost certainly speaking to a southerner a few times  I gave up.  Discouraged and left feeling guilty, thinking they were sitting around waiting for my call, my morning was ruined.  We continued our Facebook routine, and all of the sudden my sister asked me if I have Skype.......Of Course! How could I not have asked her that already?  So we connected on Skype, the camera was completely blurry but at lease we got to hear each other!  My nephew was screaming in the background "Tia, Tia", Juliet said that he asks for me all the time and misses me a lot.  She also told me that everyone knows about me, and she cant wait to introduce me to all of her friends.  I spoke to Magnolia too, and she said she misses me and also told me all about Juliet's birthday party.  I wish I could have been there, it was on October 30th and was a costume party (my kind of party!) it was also a complete surprise for Juliet.  Sounds and looked like quite the fiesta!  They are going to get a new camera or get the camera they have fixed and hopefully I will get to see their beautiful faces soon!  With Skype it will not feel like ages since I have seen them, when I finally get to see them again.  I am left tonight feeling really good about the conversation.

Coming back home has been a mixed bag of emotions.  On one hand, I longed for my family and familiar surroundings.  On the other hand, I wanted to continue getting to know my birth family.  It is sometimes hard for me to believe that this experience actually happened to me.  It feels like a dream, which makes me smile because it is in actuality my reality.  I can't wait to go back to Colombia, hopefully with my parents and visit my birth family again soon.

Freddy

My whole life I have grown up thinking that I had an older sister.  I thought what it would be like to meet her, if she looked like me, talked like me etc.  I found out on my journey to Colombia, that I never had an older sister, that the whole time I had a brother.  His name was Freddy and for those of you who have been following my blog, you know that he was murdered in April of 2010.  Even though I never got to meet him, the idea of having an older brother is still effecting me.  I have been asking myself "what would Freddy say?" about various situations.  I feel that an older brother would be protective of me, insightful, and picky on my behalf.  He would remind me to work hard, and to respect myself.  He would want the best for me.

He was a serious guy in pictures, but I was lucky to watch some videos of him.  When I got Magnolia the DVD player for her birthday, we found some home movies and DVD's with slideshows.  The way he treated our younger sister Juliet and how he embraced his baby girl, I am sure he would have been that way with me too.  He was over 6 feet, I am 5'4, Juliet is just shy of 5 feet.

I never knew it was possible to miss someone you never met, and never knew existed.  I guess it is...