Little Miss Pink Cowgirl

My oldest nephew is 6 (almost 6 1/2) and I have yet to be invited on any outing with either brother and their families. Granted, my youngest brother and his family seem to prefer to do things just the three of them. But the other brother and his family seem to do what everyone else does with me - leave me alone, assuming I'm fine that way.

Granted, I do have one limitation that my great-aunt didn't have - I don't drive - but my family has always been pretty accommodating about that.

Instead, I'm left looking at pictures of certain outings thinking "Why didn't they invite me? I love doing that kind of thing." Or hearing them talk to someone else in my family about doing something and wondering why they aren't asking me as well.

There's also the fact that I had some firsts of theirs that I wanted to experience with them that either they've already had or their parents might not want to introduce them to:

First Mariners game

First bus ride

First Light Rail ride

First musical

First viewing of certain movies

Another thing about my great-aunt is that we supported her in return. Mainly by seeing her choir performances at a local street fair. I would love for my nephews to see me Irish dance, but considering my brothers have rarely seen me dance themselves (one of them has seen me once, but that's it), I doubt that's going to happen. Same with introducing them to certain parts of my life that they're not apart of (live theater musicals, Irish dance, the Symphony) or even just doing something that I want to do.

One thing I don't remember my great-aunt doing very often that I'm good at is baking. One of my sisters-in-law even said once that between me and my mom, she doesn't really need to bake. And yet, she still does, for my nephews' birthday cakes at least (my whole family has almost always done this). One of my baking dreams/desires is to do a gender reveal cake. Since I don't have friends, I'm left hoping that someone in my family will ask me. However, one of my brothers and SILs decided to wait both times while the other brother and SIL decided to find out on their own and use balloons to tell the family. And I have no idea if either will have more (I know one wants to, but that's the couple who wanted to wait).

Lastly, there's overnights and caretaking in general. I vaguely remember us sleeping over at my great-aunt's house, though not often. And granted, my apartment's a bit too small for more than one of them to even stay late. But they recently wanted my mom to stay over at their house for almost an entire weekend when she was here for a week. They've never asked me to do that.

My dad's cousin and her husband are both teachers so they were tagged in a post by a friend (/fellow teacher?) that focused on one teacher's efforts to help lonely and bullied kids. Basically, every Friday, she asked her students to write the following in slips of paper: 4 classmates they wanted to sit next to the following week (she posed this as creating the seating chart) and 1 student they wanted to nominate as an exceptional classroom citizen. These were given to her privately and anonymously. She then laid out all the slips of paper and looks for patterns: students who are never picked, students who don't know who to pick, who doesn't get noticed enough to be nominated (but she knows should be), who had lots of friends last week but none this week. Because what she's really looking for are the lonely kids, the ones struggling socially, as well as whose gifts are going unnoticed and who's being bullied vs. who's doing the bullying. Once she figures out the kids in each of these categories, she does something about it, figures out how to help them.

Initially, I thought this was a good post about a great idea. As I continued thinking about it, though, my selfish "what about me?" thoughts took over: Why didn't MY teachers think about this? Or at least do something similar? Yes, I had friends every once in a while but for the most part, I usually sat still when my teachers let us pick our partners/groups for projects or assignments. Why didn't they notice that I was lonely and do something, anything, about it?

Maybe if they had, I'd be different. Better. I wouldn't be shy. I wouldn't be an introvert. I wouldn't be socially incompetent. Hell, maybe I'd be better in other ways because of friends I'd made earlier in life, especially if we stayed friends as we grew up: I wouldn't be a picky eater and instead would be more adventurous when it comes to food. I'd like the outdoors (and maybe the rain). I wouldn't be intimidated by any exercise machine/method that isn't the treadmill/walking (except for Irish dance, of course). I'd like and understand sports that aren't baseball. I'd like coffee (and/or tea). I'd see my back office/assistant job as a stepping stone to a higher position (specifically a leadership one). I would know how to drive. I'd like alcohol. I wouldn't be aromantic and asexual. I would've left the US at least once to go to a country other than Canada.

I know just about all of this I can change on my own, even at (almost) 38, and that I'm just too stubborn and stuck in my ways to learn social skills, learn the ins and outs of friendship, try new foods, etc. But I definitely think that things would've been different and a lot more natural had I been given the guidance earlier in life, first from teachers then from friends.

I used to refer to myself as being "silently bullied" because while my classmates and peers never made fun of me or anything, they still seemed to actively ignore me. Their thinking seemed to be "Just leave the quiet girl alone; no need to bother her. She seems to be fine on her own." I mean, it was so bad that if we'd had senior superlatives in our yearbook like previous years, I'm not sure enough of my classmates knew of my existence (or my name) to nominate me for "Most Shy." 🤦🏼‍♀️ Eventually, though, I stopped using the "silently bullied" term because let's be real - it's not a thing.

A*Teens, a music group I listened to at the time, had a song on the soundtrack. They covered the Elvis song "Can't Help Falling in Love" and did a lot of promo on Disney Channel for it. I even semi-faked not feeling well at the 9th grade goodbye party my junior high threw for us (I do remember feeling a little off. Maybe a sign of the social anxiety my mom has said I have?) to go home and watch a during-commercials special they were doing to preview the movie.

After a few viewings (and a few years of struggling to make friends), I realized that there's another reason why I like the movie: I can relate to Lilo. Just like Belle in Beauty and the Beast (another favorite), Lilo is a bit of an outcast and I've always felt like one myself. The main difference is that Lilo is bullied and ostracized to her face while Belle and I never really experienced it firsthand (although I sometimes wondered if my classmates talked about me the way the villagers talked about Belle and were just a bit more discreet). The thing is, I've always been the shy one who doesn't know how to socialize and what teenager or adult wants to hang out with that person? So I tend to stay out of people's way, which is probably why I didn't have my own Myrtle Edmonds in school.

I'm also not sure I had any super-weird quirks/personality traits/interests about me like Lilo and Belle: Lilo has a very active imagination (which granted, isn't abnormal for a 6 year old. She just isn't imaginative in the "right way" according to Myrtle and her crew) while Belle is the only reader in her village who prefers intelligence over appearance. Other than a lack of social skills, I didn't really do or like anything that was probably considered weird by my classmates. Just one thing that I'm pretty sure none of them knew about: Irish dance (I danced solo in public once {thought I wasn't visible} and got laughed at by my brother's baseball teammates). Considering it's not exactly the first thing people think of when they hear the word "dance," I always thought it best to keep that activity to myself.

Unlike Lilo and Belle, though, I never really found a friend who liked me for me and who wasn't related to me (my two best friends are my mom and my cousin). Sure, I had a few comments from classmates saying that one thing they liked/admired about me was that I was always true to myself and never changed who I was for anyone. But they never asked to hang out so did they really mean that? Was there something about "who I was" that wasn't good enough?