It’s time
4 months ago
5/01/2006
Tomorrow my niece turns 14. When I was fourteen I drank my first bottle(s) of beer. When I was fourteen I ran away from home to be with my 23 year old boyfriend but only made it two towns over to a corn field in the middle of the night before I realized that there really was no place like home. When I was fourteen I realized that people are either mostly honest or mostly liars and never are they both. At fourteen I realized my father was an alcoholic and my childhood would never be 'normal'. When I was fourteen I discovered what infidelity meant the moment I caught my dad cheating on my mother in the back of our family sedan. At fourteen I watched the strongest woman in the world become one of the weakest. When I turned fourteen I was not a child any longer, not by choice but by necessity.
My niece turns 14 tomorrow and at fourteen she will have survived the divorce of her parents, her mother giving up custody of her to her father, five different homes and six different schools, a new step mother, two new sisters, a diagnosis of AD/HD and depression. She will have discovered that people are either mostly honest or mostly liars and never are they both. She will have lost faith in those she loves but more importantly she will have lost faith in herself. She will know what it feels like to have love and lost love yet she will not be able to distinguish the two as separate. At fourteen she will have contemplated her life, searched for answers to questions she's never been brave enough to ask, and she will have lived more pain than most of her classmates. When my niece turns fourteen she will not be a child any longer, not by her choice but by necessity.
Maybe I can love her enough to let her be a child just a little longer. We all grow up too damn fast, not by choice - by necessity.
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She can be 14 and know the worst of life and the best too. Not all 14 year olds have an aunt like you.
God bless her being 14.
Your niece may very well be just fine one day , with the honesty and dignity you give her ,with her own soul she may learn how to live with depression and other issues.
Non of these are untreatable.
I share hope, because it saved my life,share it with her too :)
Thank you for sharing Net.
I see you and a baby too,
JJ
There is so much alcoholism in my family too.. and in their lives still...
We can only do what we do best. Be there for them.
Show them the love.
She's lucky to have you around, and I know you'll do whatever you can for her. You're a big plus in her life, NWC.
But the greatness to it all is that you are her aunt and despite all of the chaos of your youth, you have risen above it and have stepped out of the circle to make your own, wonderful way.
God bless you both.