30 Day Blog Challenge Topic #1

My Biggest Regret - Not Showing Up As Their Aunt

Can I be transparent with you for a minute?

This one hurts to write. Not because it’s dramatic or shocking, but because it’s deeply true.

My biggest regret in life is this: I was completely absent from the lives of my only nieces and nephew.

And that’s on me.

No excuses. Just choices I can’t undo.

I have two beautiful nieces and one amazing nephew. They’re all young adults now.

My nephew is out of college and working as a teacher (temporarily)—just like me.

My nieces are college-age, bright, beautiful, and full of passion, hopes, dreams.

And the truth is… they don’t know me.

I don’t know them.

It’s not because something happened to me. I wasn’t away in the armed services or serving time in jail. It’s because of a conscious decision I made that haunts me today.

When my nephew was born, I was in my 20s. I was young, self-centered, and caught up in the kind of freedom you don’t even realize is selfish until years later.

I had just started teaching. I lived with my mom for a bit and had no real responsibilities outside of myself.

I was living my best life being in them streets—clubbing, shopping, trying out new restaurant patios, and bars to name a few.

Meanwhile, my older brother-who I grew up close with-was beginning new chapters in his life: the corporate world, marriage, becoming a first time homeowner, and fatherhood.

I was excited.

My brother was married, and I finally had the sister I never had.

When my sister-in-law found out she was pregnant with my nephew, our entire family was overjoyed. But like all marriages, theirs had struggles.

When things got tense, my mom was often the first to hear about it.

And because my mom and I were two peas in a pod and thicker than thieves, I heard it too.

I didn’t just hear it—I absorbed it. I took it personally.

I felt all of her emotions as if they were mine.

I’ll never forget the evening I came home from the gym, walked into my mom’s kitchen and heard my sister-in-law on speakerphone.

She wasn’t yelling at my mom. She was projecting her anger from whatever my brother had done onto my mother.

I pass no judgment or blame on my former sister-in-law about how she expressed her feelings that day. I was not in her shoes. After all, I got married a couple of years later and went through something similar.

However, her words hit hard.

I don’t know how long they had been on the phone prior to when I entered the house, but I came in on the part where she said my mom would never see her grandson again. *Sidenote: For the sake of not wasting space here, I cut out all the exact words, but I can repeat them to this day.

When the call ended, my mom was left sitting at the kitchen table – sobbing.

She was already in love with that baby after meeting him, and the possibility of being cut off from him broke her.

Watching her cry, changed me in a negative way.

That day something shut off inside me, and I disconnected myself from vulnerability.

I decided not to care about anyone or anything; because in my immature, irrational mind, if I didn’t care I couldn’t get hurt the way Mom did.

I never voiced my feelings, concerns, or talked to my mom about the incident. We swept it under the rug and kept it moving.

Never did I openly say I wouldn’t be involved in my nieces’ and nephew’s lives. I just disassociated myself from it all.

I chose to back away emotionally.

I let years go by.

I missed every significant event in those children’s lives.

I wasn’t there when my nephew grew into the handsome young man that he is.

I was absent from the girls who grew up to be beautiful, intelligent young women.

I didn’t show up for games, birthdays, graduations, holidays, school events—nothing.

And the worst part?

I was too foolish and immature to have the foresight to realize how permanent that absence would feel one day and how much damage I was doing to myself and possibly to them.

To know that their dad has a sister who is their aunt that has never been there for them is sad and hurtful.

This is what cuts me to the core.

I see people nowadays who are the “fun aunties.”

My Delta Sigma Theta Soror whose nephew is Number 1 in her life can do no wrong.

I see Khloe Kardashian being the doting aunt all over social media.

I scroll past TikToks and Instagram Reels of the kind of aunt I could have and should have been.

And I feel this deep sadness, this deep regret.

A sadness that doesn’t go away. Because no gift, no apology, no kind gesture can replace years of absences that I made the selfish, silly choice to do.

If I could turn back time…

I wish I could get a do-over on this one.

I can’t buy back their childhood.

I can’t be in the photos I never took.

I can’t make them remember me as someone who showed up—because I didn’t.

I wasn’t there for their first days of school, the lost teeth, the dance recitals, the heartbreaks, the birthdays, the wins, the losses.

I don’t know their birthdays.

I don’t know their favorite colors or foods.

I don’t know what makes them laugh, what they’re afraid of, what they dream about.

I don’t know them. And they don’t know me. Not really.

The truth is, their “real” aunt isn’t me—it’s my aunt who is their great-aunt — the one we all know as the family’s favorite aunt.

She was there for them (and still is).

So, what is my biggest regret? Not being an actively involved aunt in the lives of my nieces and nephew.

This is a type of self-inflicted regret that you have to own (aka “sit in it”) and live with.

It’s embarrassing. It’s painful. And it’s my fault.

Now, this is not a sympathy piece at all whatsoever.

Writing this article neither makes me feel better about the choice I made nor does it make me feel as if I got a huge weight off my chest.

It’s the feeling like when a famiy wins a court case yet it still does not bring back the loved one. That’s how I feel.

Since I own this blog, I have a safe platform to express my thoughts and feelings.

And that’s what this 30 day blog challenge is all about.

Therefore, it’s only befitting for me to not only write about topics within my niche but also to be real with my readers on a personal level.

If even ONE of these blog posts helps someone, then I’ve done my job.

I was too immature to see what mattered.

Too selfish and shallow to see the future.

And now that the future is here, I’m standing outside of it–a stranger.

Some regrets you carry forever.

This is mine.