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#338 - talking with my neice
07.21.03 @ 10:27 pm

I have a migraine, so I went to bed. But I couldn't sleep. Just like last night, I was just lying there, wide awake. I don't know what's going on with me, but for about a year now, I'm tired most of the time. I used to take naps almost daily, especially on the weekends when I can get away with it the easiest. Now, I try and limit my naps to just weekends.

I didn't take a nap today, but still, I'm wide awake. Thoughts just circling around.

I had a good conversation with my 12 year old neice this afternoon. Maybe because I tried to treat her like an adult. I try to treat her like an equal, but ever since we've been "babysitting" her, I've been trying to have rules, schedules, make meals, etc. So today I kicked off one of my parent-like deals. Actually, I feel more like "the cool-Aunt who has a vested interest in the mind of her niece" about it.

She is at the age that I remember so fondly spending with the Heathers. Everything was about sex and music and books and friendship. She's not doing so well in school, and doesn't seem to like to read, so I thought it might be nice to turn her on to books.

So I told her today we're starting her summer reading program. Every Monday we sit (or lay on our lovely, soft, springy new carpet) together and read our respective books for one hour. Then it's up to her to read whenever she feels like it. But if by the end of the next Monday she's finished reading the book, we go to Wild Waves on Tuesday. She can read whatever books she likes, but only bigger books without lots of pictures count. We will agree to books on a case-by-case basis, but the only real rule is that there be no pictures every other page at least. And if she really likes any of the books she *completes*, I'll buy it/them for her.

I tried to make the rules as positive as possible, and she seemed very accepting of it. I told her any type of book or subject is possible, adult, teen, child. I told her I didn't care about the subject matter. I was reading amazingly adult books with lots of sex and the like in them at her age, and I didn't want to stifle whatever she might find interesting to push her to read.

She found the whole thing very positive. After discussing all of this, we had dinner, and she just kept talking to me the whole time. Quite often I find her constant chatter annoying, because she never seems to stop talking, but this evening she was talking about important, personal things.

She talked about her first therapy appointment. I told her I wouldn't ask about it, because it was private, but she could certainly talk to me about it. All she really said was that she liked the woman and they're working on nutrition and diet.

She went to go on about her friends. A boy she likes. Some of the things she said were very eye-opening, very personal, very frustrating to hear.

She mentioned that she knows alot about sex and drugs and online sex and dating, etc. She said her parents get angry at her for knowing these things. I didn't know what to say. I told her that it's frustrating to be punished for having knowledge. I could understand her parents wanting to limit her exposure to these types of things, but that I didn't think it was very productive to get mad at her if she already has the knowledge.

I probably overstepped anything I should have said there. I shouldn't have been critical of her parents. That's not helpful. I tried hard not to, trying to choose my words carefully, but something like "not appropriate" popped out of my mouth before I knew what I was doing. Argh. The last thing I want to do is interfere with her parenting.

We had a good conversation about books though. I told her she shouldn't be afraid of the dictionary, that I made the mistake when I was young of reading adult books and just skipping the words I didn't understand. "Interview with the Vampire" became a far different book the 2nd time I read it after my vocabulary had grown.

She said she was a fast reader if she was interested. That she liked love novels with happy endings. Then she picked up my book and read the back of it. She said she didn't like reading about gay characters. I asked her why. She said that two guys might be alright, but that two girls would be yucky. A girl kissing her? Eww.

I asked her if she knew any gay people. She said yes. Any gay women? Yes. So what's the problem, it's only when you read about it? Yes. That had me stumped. I thought about it. I told her I remembered when I was her age that everything was about sex. I was constantly imagining myself having sex with almost everyone I met. That with all those hormones going, I could see how she would read about two women kissing and somehow imagine herself in the situation instead.

Then I just simply told her that she should know that that's not what the girls kissing are thinking about. I pretty much left it at that. Part of me wanted to say, y'know, I'm gay. But I didn't. I'm glad I didn't. Because usually when I tell someone, I'm either a) angry about it, b) kind of showing off, or c) kind of embarrassed, guilty about revealing this because I'm hoping to NOB that they still care about me after it's said. I didn't want to throw my own emotions into a conversation that seemed to be getting my point across without getting emotional or personal.

Anyway, it was a pretty amazing half hour. She confided things in me for the first time. My sister-in-law and S's mother both are frustrated that S doesn't reveal anything about her emotions to anyone. I think the combination of her seeing a therapist who will keep everything private, and me confiding that I have lots of the same emotions that she does, helped her open up a bit.

Some of it I didn't want to hear, like when she mentioned she dreams about sex all the time and I quickly steared away from there. Whoa!!!! But it was a nice conversation nonetheless, still very personal without getting all TMI.

I think she's a good girl, she just needs to feel comfortable in her own skin, with her own thoughts, and find things to be interested in that she can be passionate about.

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