The kid is cold...

Don't let the adorable nose freckles fool you...

I used to like my seven-year-old niece. After last night, I could take her or leave her.

Last night, Chucky, I mean Molly, said the meanest, nastiest, ugliest words that could ever be spoken to a writer (particularly one who is constantly trying to convince herself, despite all evil inside voices to the contrary, that she is a writer…and also a contributing member of society).

“You don’t work,” she said from the backseat as I drove her to ballet.

“I do work,” I said, in the kind of faux-nice aunty voice I’ve had to muster before when she’s said something like, ‘Why does your bathing suit have so much space at the top?’

“I write and I take care of you every day.”

“Have you been published?”

Get outta my head, kid! Did my therapist tell you to say that? Is this some kind of test?

It took everything in me to keep from saying, “At least I can spell published… Jerkface!”

It wasn't said out of curiosity; that innocent way with which seven-year-olds usually inadvertently slay adults. There was a sharp judgyness to her tone. Her delivery was an impeccable blend of high-school-reunion-bitchy meets anorexic Ralph Lauren sales clerk. It wasn’t a kick in the chest, it was a verbal Chinese throwing star to the self-esteem.

I wish I could say that I saw this for the teaching moment that it was. I wish my confidence was such that my instinctive response was to say, “I’m living my dream, Molly. I’m going after something I’ve wanted since I was a little girl. Did you know you can do this? Reach for the stars and all that la-de-fuckin’-da.”

I wish I could say that I delivered the following monologue (while an orchestra built to a thunderous crescendo behind me):

Oh, young Molly, my beautiful and inquisitive niece, I understand how life can seem confusing sometimes; how, perhaps, against the backdrop of society’s dreary banality, I may seem like a different, more radical and youthful sort of adult than you’re used to and not just in that cool-aunt-who-knows-how-to-make-balloon-dogs way that you’ve always seen me.

Molly, I am living my dream.

(Cue Music. Stage darkens and Lola walks downstage into spotlight.)

When I was a little girl, I knew I wanted to be a writer when I grew up. In fact, I was your age, a wee second-grader myself (who rarely if ever made cold and hurtful remarks), when I entered my first writing contest. (My piece featured two boys, Dan and Dave---named after the hunkalicious Hatch twins, still the stars of my fantasy threesome---, and a little girl who wants to play baseball despite a bully’s taunting. A work of post-modern feminist literature focusing specifically on gender egalitarianism on the playground, I really was ahead of my time. I think there was also a talking fish involved. I still don’t understand how I lost to that fourth grader who wrote about a talking house but I digress…)

The point is, as an adult I am both living and still pursuing that dream. Most adults lose sight of their childhood hopes, Molly. Though it took me almost 20 years since that writing contest to realize that seven-year-old Lola knew what she was talking about, I am finally doing right by her and going for it completely (and enduring the insecurities, neuroses and constant feelings of inadequacy that come with it).

(I was talking about writing there, not the threesome with the Hatch brothers.)

See, Molly, you can do whatever you want with your life. Here I am, proof that you can be whomever you want to be (provided you like noodles and butter). Whenever you feel like your dreams are out of your reach just think of your ol’ Aunty Lola (doing laundry at your house) and remember that anything is possible.

I wish I had explained to Molly what it means to pursue art and how money isn’t the only driving force. We were on the way to ballet class, the life lesson was practically laid out for the teaching.

Instead, open and bleeding, I sulked in the front seat and grumbled something about the old newspaper job.

When she lobbed this next one at me, “Do you wanna hear me sing There Was a Little Bird That Sat on a Fence?” I answered, I’m ashamed to say, with a sarcastic, “Naaah.”

(Only 10 seconds of silence sat between us before I said, yes, please sing it for me, and she did.)

I can laugh about it now but it took a full car ride home of blasting the Glee soundtrack and listening to Don’t Stop Believin’ seven times in a row for me to recover. Still, it’s a little horrifying to realize that were life a sitcom I would be the wacky aunt or the underachieving sibling with the scruffy facial hair whom everyone is waiting for to snap out of it and “get a real job.”

In my most oppressive moments of insecurity, when fear is plugging my nose and doubt is covering my mouth, I’ve even had these thoughts myself. Maybe it is time for me to grow up…

But then the image of a little seven-year-old girl who wanted to be a writer comes into my head and whenever I think of taking out the ol’ resume and using bullet points to paint a picture of someone other than myself, I can hear her raspy voice in my ear:

“Bitch, please… ”

Screw light therapy, this show is going to get me through the winter blues.