2001-11-25 - 11:16 p.m.

Thanksgiving was good, I love spending time with the kids, although I have to admit being the favorite aunt is getting harder and harder on me. I was virtuous, too - no drinking except wine with dinner, and 2 cigarettes in four days. I ran around like a maniac on the lawn with the kids, shrieking and ducking, and I bought my niece a book of Shel Silverstein's poetry, which I loved (and still do) myself. And so did she. It is frightening to see how much like me she is, it's almost beyond understanding, with all that mixed DNA, that we should be so alike. I see myself in her, walking to the car to go to the mall with me, head bent over the book while she walked. She likes to write poems herself (in a description of herself she had to write for first grade, she wrote, in wobbly little girl print : I am a pome writer. Ha!) so I bought her a notebook and paper, and we wrote a poem together about blowing up the Aerobed, which she insisted we sleep on, and she copied it over carefully into her new notebook. She decided she would finish the Shel Silverstein book by Saturday. I try hard to encourage this side of her, because I watch her parents try to make her what they want her to be.

And I'm sensitive to that. I once had a moment with my niece, when she wanted to ride on a ski lift ride at a resort town in North Carolina. I told her I'd go with her, and from behind us I could hear her parents and my Mom, saying "Honey, that's really high. You might be scared. I don't know if you should go on that."

And a lightbulb went off over my head. The voice in my mind said, "Oh, no you don't. You're not going to make her afraid like you made me afraid of new things." I yelled to the ride operater to see if she was too small to go on - he said no, so I took her hand and we got on. I was actually a little nervous about it, and gripped her around the waist so tight she told me I was crushing her.

It's hard to watch them fussing at her about her clothes, or her hair. Ignoring the part of her that I see, and focusing on cheerleading. I know it's out of love, I know they think it's best. So did my mother, I know it. My mother loves me with all her heart and soul, and supports me in everything I do. But, although she encouraged all types of education, and allowed me to read in bed till late, and bought me all the books I wanted, she had her own idea of the person I was supposed to be. And I rebelled against it, fairly early on.

But in some ways, I did conform. I hear so many people talk about the hell that was high school - I LOVED high school - I was popular and witty and a little rebellious, and ran in a big clique. I was one of the cool kids, and I still hear it sometimes now, when I run into some random person from high school and they tell me they had a crush on me, or was jealous that I was friends with the cool boys that they wanted to date. And I never dated any of them, earning me the status of one-of-the-guys, which exists till this day. We have a ritual boys night out the night before Christmas Eve, always at the same bar. I'm the token female, and it's almost the only time I see any of them all year.

But anyway - the point of it is that there is a price to be paid for popularity. Kids who were picked on in high school were usually targeted for being different. It stands to reason, then, that the popular kids are not different. They conform.

And popular kid status continues after high school. Things have always come easily for me, although I often rejected them, stupidly and self-destructively rebelling. Even in my career - I haven't applied cold for a job since my first and second jobs. Cops don't give me tickets (usually) and the countermen always remember how I like my coffee. I can charm my prickly boss (although I'm loathe to these days) and am my grandmothers favorite. And since I've been divorced, I've realized that I need the girl I used to be. Before marriage, before suicide, before I cared what people thought. So I've gone looking for her, and have traced through the paths of my life. I gave up that girl - I assimilated to become the girl I thought I should be, and I was good at it. But no amount of prom dates is worth that cost.

And I am thankful that my divorce, and the soul searching necessary to get past it, let me see that. And I am changing it.

I know I'm supposed to work my issues out on my OWN children, but I can't help it. I don't want her to have to hold herself in. And my brother and his wife are great, loving parents to her. But they can't see what I see.

Uh, sorry. I don't even know where that came from, but I'm leaving it up.

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