Stories like when my grandma really wanted to learn to swim... She bought herself a bathing suit and applied for lessons. My grandpa threw the bathing suit away and made sure she couldn’t go. My grandmother still can’t swim and she’s lived on an island most of her life 😭
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Curaçao, wow. I remember seeing a beautiful documentary about the island once. Curious to know how the situation is over there with Venezuela right next door..
That is a gigantic family you have there. Gigantic being an understatement! And a lot of difficult life stories for so many lives.. probably deeply rooted in the issues faced from growing up in poverty (i'm guessing). Addictions are often a common denominator arising from such tragedies, a form of escapism we all so easily fall into.
Looks like your drug of choice was and still is art. I hope you stick to that one for as long as you possibly can, as I love what you do, and many others also do here on Steemit.
Thank you so much for sharing your stories with us. It's always so fascinating to try and understand the art behind the artist.
Thank you, it's a very beautiful island, a gem in the Caribbean, we are quite far removed from the other islands, so we have remained a bit isolated and original.
The situation with Venezuela is deteriorating, politically there is turmoil and the Venezuelans have imposed a trade embargo on us (strange, cause they had more to benefit from it) Maduro is making a situation of Us against the world, and a lof of people are buying it.
I'm always shocked when I meet Maduro supporters, we are also receiving refugees by boat, sometimes they capsize and we have bodies that wash up on shore, and the island is not doing enough to do something for the Venezuelan refugees here. We send them back...
Historically we have a deep history with Venezuela, plenty of trade and friendship, even Simon Bolivar, the great South American liberator, was a refugee on our island for some years, his right hand man, and essential figure in the liberation of South America, was Pedro Luis Brion, a Curaçao born freedom fighter.
We have watched Venezuela deteriorate since Chavez took over many years ago...
The addictions are definitely a coping mechanism, I'm 31 now, and I fighting hard to not let the patterns I was raised with dominate me. It seems easy, but taking responsibility for your own traumas is quite a challenge for me...
Art has definitely been instrumental in allowing me to try and change my perspectives...
Thank you for the extra info.
It's always much more reliable to hear it from someone who sees it with his own eyes than to listen to our media feed us what they wish to feed us.
As for the addictions, I think all of us fight them in one way or another, some to more extremes than others. The patterns do shape us, but like you say, it is a struggle to not let them dominate us - sometimes the struggles last a lifetime. It looks like your approach is leading you on the right path though... :-)