My niece is sleeping on the futon in my living room, and it makes me feel old. It's not the being an aunt part because, hell, I've been doing that for almost 14 years now. It's the being a grown-up aunt part, the aunt who drives you to her apartment in the city and tries to be cool and asks you about the boys you like, but who can't help saying things like, "That's not how it was when I went to Baker" and "Yeah, I had a crush on a boy like that once." The aunt who watches Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen with you and says things like, "Those can't possibly be real" and "That skirt is awfully short for a 15-year-old." The weird thing is, I really can remember what it was like to be 13. I remember hanging out in the bleachers after lunch. I remember when I thought that I would just die if the boy I liked didn't like me. It doesn't seem like so long ago, really.
Luckily, I have a 2-year-old nephew to make me feel young again, when I get to be the aunt who introduces him to the wonders of snow and teaches him important things like how to make a snow angel and how to throw snowballs at his big sister.
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