Saturday, 01/20/07 - 2:11 pm.
I'm 22 now. I spent my birthday at the gym, and in an empty playground with my little nephew, who never knew it was my birthday. Well, he found out at night, when we went to an italian restaurant. I got a free cake.
I got the dinner from my brother and SIL, e-mail and phone greetings from my family (parents and siblings) back home, and a card and money, and a phone call, from my brother in El Paso. Funny, funny card. Also, if it wasn't for him, I wouldn't have gotten any money...which would've been ok, really, but I needed some for the gym one-month membership.
But that's about the good news. I don't really like celebrating my birthday, it's a day like any other for me. I'd get excited back then, when I wanted a certain toy, but I'm through with that phase, so I'm just content with getting some love from my family...and that, I don't even feel like I need it! Because I get it all the time (grateful for that, for the record).
My birthday ended in tears, though. But not mine, my niece's [Sorry, put up with me here]. It started when my niece asked to go roller skating with her friends last night. I said we could go for my birthday dinner today (I didn't need one) instead, since everybody had other plans. My brother and sister-in-law insisted we did it on the proper night. And my niece could've made it on the time to the skating, but she went in the computer, when it's clearly forbidden for her. And when my brother found out and asked her to log off, she started to yell and yell that she knew and she was about to do it.
My brother and SIL were downstairs putting up with her screaming, and looked at each other saying "she's not going". She found that out in the middle of dinner, and she stopped eating and became bitter.
At night, when everything seemed to be forgotten and everyone was falling asleep, my brother came upstairs to say good night to her. Suddenly she started screaming, like I'd never heard her before. My SIL came upstairs and it turns out my brother found her sleeping on the floor, he picked up a few clothes he found on his way, and then she started screaming to put them where they were, the way they were. She did about five good minutes of screaming, saying nothing but "put it back, daddy", and I feared the neighbors would hear and think she was being beat up or something. My brother kept the cool and just went back to his bedroom, downstairs.
After some time of yelling, I heard my niece rush downstairs. A lot of thumping and more yelling, until I heard a definite sound, just once, and she started crying. It was that she had been hit, or she hit herself in her rage. I think it's the former. I heard her cry out loud. I knew hitting her was a mistake in the long run, but I also knew they (one of them) went for it more out of frustration than because it was considered it a tool to achieve discipline.
Minutes later, her pain became anger, and she was yelling again. She came back upstairs and I heard her moving stuff. I thought she could even be thinking of running away, or hurting herself, I don't know. I wondered if I should go check on her, even though it was sure that she'd reject my offer to help her in any way.
But after all, to be honest, she hasn't been mean to me personally. Aside from her usual moody self, in which she doesn't greet and speak to anyone, she hasn't been rude to me directly. It seems she also knew it wasn't because of my dinner party that she didn't go roller skating. So all that's made me a bit confident in approching her, I keep it nice, and if she isn't nice, I stay away. Last night she was telling me about the "drama" going on between some of her friends. I listened to her and commented on a few things, so she could see I understood. It was the only thing to do, and I thought that maybe later on we could keep talking about stuff that was important to her (and that one, as a post-teenager, shrugs it off and sees it as stupid and even avoidable).
So I called her name soflty and asked if I could come in. She, softly too, replied "no". So that was the end of my intervention, and I heard her cry for a while. All in all, I couldn't feel moved by what was she going through. I understood, but I didn't feel. The drama had started over a pair of clothes that weren't folded the way she wanted. My brother and his wife live in a constant frustration over how violent and disrespectful their children are toward them, and among them. Surely they've made a few mistakes as parents, but nothing alarming: they're always loooking out for the kids, trying to give them protection and independence, freedom and responsability, in the right measure.
But sometimes these teenagers turn like toddlers, throwing tantrums at the slightest frustration (like "give me one minute to finish and I'm with you, son"). Today at lunch, it was my nephew who was being incredibly irrational, to the point of trying to pour hot sauce on my niece's head. He wouldn't let her sit on a chair, "I AM going to sit there", and then he didn't. See, instead of speaking, he acts out; then he claims no one listens to him. I saw my SIL's eyes turn watery at the whole conflict, I know she and my brother are simply worn out from these kids. It's like they (the kids) are always taking everything the wrong way; everything is a personal threat and the minute one is not at their feet, they follow their primary instinct to hurt, and sometimes they insult their parents in the meanest way.
My little nephew is aware of all this, although he, like me, has learned to step back. Perhaps I should bring this subject up with him, he's like a sponge and often it's turned out that he's absorbed more than what you think he did. He's almost 11, and I'm praying he won't change like that when he hits puberty. My other nephew and my niece were very angry since they were babies. I see the advantage that he's never been a complainer, and if you ask him a favor, he does it gladly; not even whe he was a little boy he exploded when he got a "no". He has ugly rows with my sister (but in this case, I mostly blame my sister), always about schoolwork, but all in all, he seems to appreciate everything he has, put his slowly-growing independence to good use, and understand why limits/guidelines are set. I hope he keeps that up.
There's still a weekend to go with these kids. I dread weekends because they stay home, and you have to entertain them. My big nephew gets obnoxious, insisting they MUST go out, while everybody else just wants to stay home and rest (especially my brother, who literally lives at the hospital)...although he and my niece always have something to do. But also at home, fights start.