The youngest child in my family, I was born far apart from the core—the nucleus—that is my mother and father combined into one.
They had three children before me, the oldest fourteen years apart, then twelve, then six, and then there was me. Born into an entirely different dynamic than my eldest siblings, different parents and a different world ('93), it was, needless to say, incredibly difficult to connect and relate to anyone around me. It felt as though I was the responsibility of people who did not want it, nor did they have the capacity to care for me or who I was becoming, other than making sure I am fitting into their predefined boxes of how I should be, for the sake of my survival.
Of course, before I could digest any of this into a paragraph of an entry, I felt there was something inherently wrong with me. This, and its implications, is a story for another time.
I’ve been somebody’s aunt for about fifteen years now. I have as many years apart with my eldest nephew as I have with my eldest sibling. It’s undeniable however, that my connection to my nephews and nieces is unparalleled. Today, I felt like writing about it.
There forever grows a deep sense of gratitude and a feeling of being blessed to be related to my niblings (I was today-years-old when I found this word exists. I love it so much). Regardless of the complex relationships that I may have with their parents—my brothers and sister—my relationship with their offspring is an entirely separate thing. Perhaps because it’s not just about the obvious blood-relation, but rather the mix of the in-law's history, personality, and character, allowing for a different bond to form. This bond is shaped by familial resemblance—looks, voice, and even interests—and a genuine curiosity about the unique individuals my siblings chose as partners. Beyond being a by-product of their genetic code, they are raised by parents who each bring their own family histories and dynamics into their new families, within which they develop their own roles.
Growing up as an observer of my family, and add to that a passion for studying the human psyche, has placed me in a unique middle ground: between my parents' generation, my siblings, myself, and the post-millennial generation that are my niblings. And somehow, amidst this confusing mix of struggling to understand our elders, we’ve developed a beautiful thing:
Eternal kinship.
You can probably tell even by this writing that I’m incredibly technical when it comes to my family. I can dissect our dynamics and though there are deep emotions in these understandings, I’ve extracted as much emotion from those relationships as possible to make room for a much more comforting sense of reason.
Yet, my nephews and nieces changed that. They have reignited in me a sense of belonging, or perhaps the recognition of the fact that perhaps I could have belonged in my family all along, if only it were comprised of a different constellation of individuals.
Perhaps.
Witnessing their existence brought forth the fact that caring is at the core of our human experience. Perhaps not everyone holds onto the feeling, or deems it worthy to be held onto. As anything else, it too is a choice. To care is a choice, one that I was making and continue to make every day of my waking life. And this, made me wonder of all the ways we care as human beings, that is lost in the translation of relations and choices made on either end of this incredible act of a feeling.
There are just so many ways to say it:
I care for you—your state of being. To love every way in which your petals expand and blush and grow to learn to seek the sun. To do my best through the self I have grown into to show you how lovable you are, as you are, for who you are is a complex creature; a complex being built to care. To keep you aware of the fact that you are not alone in this bountiful experience. I care about you—your path of becoming. To love every which way your light beams and reflects through and from places and spaces, and faces, and surfaces absorbant, and reductive, and reflective alike. To witness the life you choose for yourself as you expose your light into it; and may it be bright and noble and fulfilled and long and light enough to bear and bountiful to share. May you never run out of light or awareness of the awe of your existence. I take care of you—through your process of growth. To lend a limb or a neural pathway or a word of wisdom or an eardrum to listen or a path to somewhere else, wherever that may be; may it be always better and brighter and accept you fully and open your worlds of self to explore and love and let thrive and take care of as you manifest in this existence. I care. It is as simple as that.
Dashni,
Bubamarrë 🐞