Self Portrait

This is Bella, as she saw herself at 5 years old. I've had it hanging on my refrigerator for the past year and every time I see it not only do I love the little artist in her but I look at the word "Me". Me. Funny word just sitting there all alone. Me. Small word but big, changing from day to day. Me.

Bella is my brother Joe's daughter, little sister to big brothers Robert and Jojo. I was in the delivery room watching her come into the world, and I know the first words Bella heard over and over and over again were "oh my God". Her parents joked with me that that was all they heard the whole time too. I could not believe what I was seeing, experiencing! I have seen films on birthing but to actually be there and watch a child come into the world, a child who is part of your family. As an aunt I was so overwhelmed, as parent, I can only imagine a small tiny bit of what you must feel.

I live upstairs from Bella and her brothers, and it is a very different relationship with them, than it is with all my other nieces and nephews. NOT AT ALL BECAUSE I LOVE THEM MORE, I LOVE EVERY SINGLE NIECE AND NEPHEW I HAVE (and I have a lot!!!!) But I say it is a different relationship because I myself grew up with my aunt living with me and my family until I was about 5 years old, and even when she moved out and got married, I still saw her pretty much everyday. She is my mom's sister, my beautiful Aunt Libby. She is much younger than my mom and when my grandmother died she came to live with us. Eventually Aunt Libby and her family ended up living across the avenue from us and we really saw each other every day. She was a part of my life in a different way than my other aunts and uncles and to this day I think we have a different relationship than she has with her other nieces and nephews, and again I have to say, she doesn't love me more, it's just that we had a different relationship.

There's all kinds of studies done on personality traits that people have if they were first born, the baby of the family, the middle child of course, even twins, I've met quite a few and they always tell you who was born first.

Me. Well I am the 4th child born to my parents, but also the first girl and since there were 3 more kids born after me I am also the middle child. I was born into a large family already and again Aunt Libby was there and though I can barely remember living together, it's there in side me. Me.
Me. I started life being adored and coddled by my older brothers, my mom often joked with me that she had to have another child just so I wouldn't be the only girl and the baby of the family. Even our neighbors at the time I was born, 2 boys my brothers' ages and their little sister Laura who was 2 years older than me. They still tease me to this day how when the ice cream man would come around and we'd all ask for ice cream and be told no, not now, I would sit on the stoop crying and the ice cream man couldn't resist me and gave me free ice cream. That's what they tell me, I have no memory of that, but all those experiences that we don't remember, I think, make us "me". I lived in Long Island until I was 4 and I really just have very small glimpses of memories of living there. We visited there after we moved back to Brooklyn so I think most of those memories are really from when I was a little older. But my father's brother lived in Babylon and we lived in Deer Park and I know we spent so much time at my Uncle Bill and Aunt Joan's house. I can remember it more than my own home in Long Island.

Me. Ever changing. Sometimes because the world around me changes, sometimes because I want to make a change in myself, be a better person, be healthier, be kinder, be smarter!

My brother Joey told me not too long ago that our dad would say to him "If, little word, big meaning". I don't remember my dad saying that but since Joey said it, I say it to myself every once in awhile. It is a hopeful word sometimes, a warning, a chance.

So, me, another small word but so big in meaning.
Me. Today I'm happy single girl. Girl, I'm 52 but I still feel like a girl, I don't think of myself as a woman and to say it or write it, it doesn't feel like me, not yet anyway.
Me. I don't work 9 to 5 and I haven't used an alarm clock for about the last three years. I just wake up. Usually very early but I don't wake up to a buzzing alarm, or loud music, I just wake up and it's a wonderful way to start my day.
Me. Today I wrote this blog and remembered Bella being born. Bella drawing this picture for me. I thought about me at 5 years old, living with my Aunt Libby. I remembered being locked out of the room we shared, a lock high up on the door that I couldn't reach even standing on a chair. And I remembered one of the reasons the door was locked. I remember she had Dippity-Do on her dressing table, not that I could read "Dippty-Do" at the time.

I remember being so intrigued by whatever this jar held. It was a clear color and looked like lots of bubbles in a substance that also was like nothing I had ever seen. I tried many times to open it and it being too hard for me to untwist the cap. Until one day that I tried and it opened and I put it all over my face. I don't remember much more, but I'm sure I got in trouble, I'm sure I felt bad that I made my Aunt feel bad, a little more added to "me".
Me. Today is Friday, it's Labor Day Weekend, which is a 3-day weekend and I also get out an hour early today because of the holiday weekend.
Me. Today I already thought of just a few of the wonderful family and friends that I love and they love me.

Me, little word, big meaning.