Auntie Nobody

Ever had one of those moments when you feel like the absolute worst version of yourself? Yeah, I do too.
I had a moment like that on Saturday. Hear I am sitting at my nephews first birthday party, surrounded by people I don't know and there is my nephew, just chilling, crawling around - happy as can be, and he doesn't know me.  Last time I saw him he couldn't crawl, let alone pull himself up to stand. And all of these strangers know him better than me.  Hell I don't even know what to say to my own sister!  We've never been what you could call close.

I have two half sisters, both older than me - yep I'm the baby! - and both on either side of the family tree (one for dad, one for mom) Angie is mom's Kendra is dad's. Angie and me had a great relationship, especially when I got older. But Angie and I are not talking right now, technically I'm not allowed to talk to my nieces but I try to anyway. Kendra and me have never been super close. I never confided in Kendra, and though she was around more in my childhood - we were very very different.

I'm quite different from both sisters, which is one of the reasons I am not on speaking terms with Angie.

Not being close with Kendra has never overly bothered me. We were just two different people, and she didn't seem to have an overwhelming need to be close with me, so I didn't either. Maybe because I am minus a sister at the moment do I now feel the need to solidify our bond.

So here I am, in this crowd of people with small children and toddlers running around and I am totally at a loss for what to do. I am not used to family functions where I don't know the family.  I turn into the loner in the corner - the person I try so hard not to be - because I just don't know what to do. Let me tell you, being at a one year old's birthday and being one of 2 people who hasn't given birth is hard - and the other person had her boyfriend, something I am lacking because he is in another province. So I had nobody to talk amongst myself with.

And this whole time I'm just marvelling at how damn cute this kid is and oh my god how he has grown. And holy cow this came out of Kendra, and he is so well mannered (for a one year old) and damn I'm just so impressed.

After everything was said and done, and I found a comfy seat to sit in while mothers packed up their hoard s of children and started carting them to vehicles I sat and pondered on my 5th time aunthood. This is the first nephew, I have had nothing but nieces - 4 to be exact. All of which I have been very close with their mothers (Angie and my sister in law). I realized how much of a failure I was because it had literally been two seasons since the last time I saw him. Time passes fast, but that is no excuse for me to be a crappy aunt and above all a crappy sister.

I finally got to hold the nephew dearest and though only his blanket kept him from crying I felt resolved to see him more.

Now knowing me, as I do, I know that I am queen of procrastinating and that I can make excuses until the Apocalypse comes but I hope I can see them more often, I hope one day that kid will know me and be happy to see me.

I leave you with some photos of the cake eating competition he had with himself. Mostly it involved throwing the cake and digging a whole through it, but it was damn cute!