I Will Not Feel Obligated to Quit Living My Life

I understand your life changed, for the better of course. You and your now husband made a beautiful, early-on, mistake, as we have called it, and you created this amazing little life that I call my niece. I admire her. I think you have done a spectacular job with her and also her brother, that soon followed after. You gave up goals, dreams, and made sacrifices to be able to raise these two children and provide the amazing life you are giving them. I am proud of you for that. Unfortunately, although I see all these amazing things, I can't help but tell you I do not feel that I should be obligated to comply with the new set of life changes.

First, I support you, I will always support you. I still need you to support me though. I still plan to work long hours to save money for the things I aspire to have. I still plan on going out late and hanging out with my (our) friends and living the life we always talked about living. That does not include you though and that is fine, your choices are for the better of your family. I still plan to make frequent visits, check up on you, and ask about your days. I still plan to sit for coffee and talk about the latest drama in our lives. Although yours has now moved to PTA and sports clubs, I will try to meet you on that level. I will still talk about how Becky's mom absolutely doesn't have it going on, and how being hot for teacher is actually legal now, but I will talk about my life also. I will tell you about the things I did Saturday night and the random adventure I took over the past weekend. I hope that you understand that I don't do this to rub it in, I do it because we are living these separate lives. Your's with two children running around, my own in my 20s.

Second, I love that tutu she is wearing, but I can't be there for every little detail. I think that she looks gorgeous and she's probably the best on the stage and I am sure he can toss that basketball from the 3 point line, but committing to these things with a full schedule is almost impossible for me. I can only promise you to be there for the special moments, to celebrate the birthdays, to see the look when they get that special gift from Santa, to celebrate their successes. As much as you want me to be part of every moment and tell me how much the kids would love it if I came I need you to understand that I am still living my life. I know you find it exciting when they are holding sparklers in the backyard for the 4th of July picnic, and as much as I would love to tell you that it was at the top of my list for things to do, it wasn't. I am young, in this new relationship, and the sparks are still lighting for me. I need you to know that although I miss these few moments that I am still thinking of you and checking in. I still want to know how she dropped her hot dog and I want to know how he fell asleep before the grand finale. I promise to like all the Facebook posts and I hope that when you see mine you can think "I hope she had a great time".

Third, I want you to know that although I am not there every day and you may think I am making excuses, I am not. I am here, maybe not exactly where we envisioned we would be, but I am here at some point in my life that did not come with a family and kids yet. The two paths we took were much different. I remember sitting with each other at 16, saying we would go off to college together, have our children at the same time, plan a double wedding, and I giggle now. You have had two children, got married, bought a home, have two cars and have family game nights. I am sometimes living off a half bottle of wine, crackers, day old coffee, and I am in no rush to change that. I am happy, so please understand that I am.

Although we are not as close as we once were I hope you can open your mind to see this the way I have. To see that we have become different people, with different experiences, and different goal, yet the common goal is for us to remain friends. The common goal is to support each other's endeavors whether they are covered in sticky cake fingers, or I'm topping it off with two Advil to skip the hangover. Either way, thank you for understanding, thank you for being my family. Keep being the amazing person I know you are.

-J.Bee