2004-08-09

Aunt Cow

Last week, we had a family get-together to celebrate my cousin's 30th. She's always been to me the cooler older cousin figure, and even now it's exactly the same. I suspect it'll be the same when I'm 60 and she's 70--I'll think she's living in a funkier retirement home and is accessorising her false teeth better. But there's no other word to describe her than cool, really. The only thing that's changed is that I know I'll never be quite as cool, quite as self-assure, quite like her.

My aunt on the other hand (not her mother, but the next sister down), will not always be the coolest aunt. I used to admire her when I was young. She was well travelled, and bohemian, I thought. A lot of the things I would like to be too, on top of the coolness of my cousin. Looking back, she did very little to deserve it. Once, when I was back in school, I told her that I was going out to meet a friend and she said "Oh. I didn't realise you had any friends.". Nice. When you're an insecure teenager that's exactly what you want to hear. I still didn't mind her then, though. To me, I guess, it was fair enough. I didn't have that many friends, I didn't see myself as normal, so fair enough, it was my lot to take the crap and I deserved it.

Not any more.

Because I grew self-esteem. It makes me not like, actually, people asking me question and not really listening, not actually even caring very much about the answer. It means it bothers me when I think that someone beleives they're superior to me and my family. It means I'm very bothered indeed when I tell someone I'm working as a filing clerk and they say "Oh, so you've not been promoted yet. When I was...[insert somewhere]..I'd been promoted to....".

Seriously?

Perhaps not seriously. Perhaps I miss the joke, because she delivers everything with this dry detatchment that I don't pick up on. But even as a joke..why?

Then I blame myself. Everyone else, excepting my parents, maybe, seem to like her. So I think that there's something wrong with me. Which is ironic, because that's how she makes me feel. That's how she talks to me, and has, on reflection always talked to me.

Which is why I'm typing this I suppose. I can't tell my family, because I feel that that would be wrong somehow. I don't want to make anyone uncomfortable, and until such a day as I hear she slags off me, I have this strange feeling that I need to afford her some respect. So this is the place I'll rant. So I can feel like I'm not wrong, like I'm not stirring up trouble, like I'm allowed to have these thoughts. I can put down how I feel and it feels like she hasn't won, because somewhere I can put down exactly what I think of her and don't have to feel strange or bad about it.

And if you're still reading by now, good on you.

12:45 p.m.

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