Trueblat's Last Name(TLN)

So I've gradually let people in my family know about my blog sight, and welcomed them to read it. But certain family restrictions have continued to block my family from ever viewing my blog. I told my sister out at BYU about my blog and told her she's welcome to read any part of it she wants. I get an e-mail from her several days later. I'll post an excerpt for you.

"Also, I thought about it and decided that I won't do the blog thing cause I don't have much time. Also, I decided that I won't read yours unless you want me to because the way I understand it is that it is kindof like your journal and that info should be yours to be able to write without fear of a sibling."

This is a TLN trate. You all probably don't understand how big of a deal that is. Let me try to explain. Growing up in backwoods Kentucky, in a family of 9 kids, and live in the same house for about 26 years. The community knows you, your family, what's expected of us. Add being Mormon on top of that for another can of worms. We were something of a very unique family. Teachers knew what being a TLN is. They would try to stay and see how many TLN's they could teach. I think the highest was 8 of 9 TLNs. We were never called by our first name. Whoever was oldest in high school was TLN, and whoever was the younger in high school was Little TLN. Let me put down a list of stereotypical attributes associated with being a TLN.

- You are exceptionally smart.
- You can eat more food than anybody else.
- You can play any musical instrument and have excellant ears and sightsing abilities.
- You can sleep through any class you feel like and still get A's.
- Better yet, you can sleep anywhere.
- You are atheletic.
- You are pain resistant.
- You can beat the crap out of anyone, but choose not to.
- You are very mature.
- You are respectful to all.
- You are essentially perfect.
- You are as emotional as a rock.

These are the public ones that the community saw in us. Some of us thrived under these stereotypes, others didn't. I'm one who thrived and felt I had to meet every single one of these standards as I was growing up. I still suffer trying to stay awake through class though. And the sleeping only effects the guys in my family. It's the private stereotypes we give ourselves that tends to make us worse off. The one that caused my sister to write that statement. We are a very closed mouth family, escpecially when it comes to problems or private matters. I think it stems from the stereotypes that were given to us and we allowed ourselves to follow them. So what happens when we can't live up to this. We hide it from all, don't let it be seen, and make sure we don't see it in others of our family. We are terrible at this communication thing. Certain people in our family have realized that and are taking steps to correct that, my mom included. The problem with this sister is that I'm sure she hasn't realized it yet. As intellegent as she is, she tends to not be able to look within herself moreso than us others. Telling outright never works, and I've gotten her to realize a couple of things in roundabout ways, before. But anyway, back to the subject at hand. Where was I? We don't dwell in others people's business, but to the extent that we don't know each other, and choose not to. If she were to read my blog, she would find rants and raves that nobody would have ever guessed come out of me, perhaps she saw them and thought it was too personal and made her uncomfortable to read. She should realize I'll write whatever I want regardless of whether she's reading it or not, and the rest of my family included with that. Perhaps I want them to see more of the meat in my life than just my daily schedule that I e-mail occassionally. That's why I told her. I know this contradicts what I first intended this blog to be, but really, now I don't mind what my family sees of this. I mean I've written several blogs about specific family members. Even if they would happen to read them, they're all too freakin' private and wouldn't feel comfortable even talking to me about it. There are some major flaws in my family and I intend to root them out of myself, hopefully others will learn. LEARN TO COMMUNICATE PEOPLES!!! I don't know if any of this made sense. There is really much more behind this than meets the eye. The stories I could tell that would show my point. But I hopefully made some type of point in this.