What went wrong?

It has been a while since I blogged anything.  It's probably been since before my son was born when I last posted here.  I'll try to post more.

There has been something on my mind ever since November.  During the last elections, I'm sure people have lost friends over political beliefs.  Our country is so divided that even family members are deleting each other on FB and other social media simply because they don't agree over politics.  I think this is the case here.

Back when I was nine years old, my cousin whom I shall call Vivienne gave birth to her last child; a daughter whom I shall call Alexandria.  I'm not giving names because I want to protect their identities.  On Christmas day when I was nine, I met Alexandria for the first time.  She was barely a week old and I remember asking Vivienne a lot of questions about her.  I wanted to hold her but Vivienne declined.

During my childhood, I had a lot of issues.  I wasn't very mature when I was little and I was diagnosed with ADD at around that time.  There wasn't a lot of knowledge about ADD when I was that young.  It was a fairly new condition that was just recognized so at the time, there was a lot of ignorance about it.  Adults didn't really trust me to play with their kids who were younger than I was so I'm thinking that's why my cousin didn't allow me to hold her week old daughter.

Anyway, I watched Alexandria grow up.  She was my little buddy.  She was very sweet and I thoroughly enjoyed playing with her.  When she celebrated her second Christmas I remember giving her a lot of M&M's.  Her face was all covered in green and red food coloring.  I think her mom was disappointed in me for giving her all that candy but I didn't mind.  I could always count on having a playmate when I saw her and I think she enjoyed playing with me too.

While I was growing up, Vivienne had another daughter who was six months younger than me.  I will call her Ava.  Ava and I didn't really have much to do with each other.  Most of the time, I thought Ava thought she was too good for me.  We didn't hit it off at all at any point of our lives so I didn't have another female cousin to play with on my dad's side.  When Alexandria was born, I had another little girl to play with even if there was a nine year age difference between us.

We got along great for almost 10 years.  Even after my grandparents died, we still saw a lot of Vivienne's family but from 1996 onward, we only saw Vivienne's family sparingly.  First we saw them every holiday and that stopped after Christmas of 1995.  Then it got down to seeing them whenever there was a graduation or wedding.  By 1998, we saw them even less.

I got married in 1999 and Vivienne and her family came to my wedding.  I didn't have time to talk to Alexandria because everyone pulled me in all sorts of directions and mingling with everyone was near impossible.  I would sit down and have a conversation with someone only to be cut off and pulled onto the dance floor.  Don't get me wrong: I had a great time at my wedding but since I have problems with crowds, I  was feeling a little anxiety.  I couldn't even finish a drink or cigarette that night.

Three years later when Alexandria was 16, my husband and I saw her at the mall after not seeing her since my wedding.  When I saw her, I was so happy to see her and I wanted to strike up a conversation with her since it was such a long time.  I said hello to her and something was wrong.  It seemed like she didn't want to talk to me.  She wanted to continue shopping with her friends.  It was as if I was a stranger to her and I don't know why.  My family had been a part of her life since she was born and I played with her every time we saw each other and I was left puzzled, sad and a little angry when I let her run along with her friends.

In 2004, she graduated high school.  I was invited to her party but I declined the invitation.  We had lost touch with the family so much that whenever we saw them it felt as if we were strangers and most of the time, they would finally get around to talking to us when everybody left.  I hated that feeling so it was better for us if we stayed home.

In 2007, her sister Ava got married and I went to her bridal shower prior to that.  Alexandria was there but she didn't talk to me.  The most she said was hello and that was it.  The same applied to her wedding and shortly after their brother's girlfriend was pregnant and she had a shower too.  I went to that shower with my daughter and I found myself being excluded and ignored.  I felt invisible to them and both showers were very awkward to me and I found myself deeply regretting going there.

Fast forward to present day.  I found Alexandria on Facebook and while there wasn't any interaction between us, I always made it a point to tell her happy birthday and I told her I loved how she posted updated pictures of herself and her family.  I also found out how successful she had become with her life.  She now works in the health care industry and it looks like she has a very good position where she is.  This made me very proud of her and a part of me figures that maybe it's for the best that she cut off talking to me throughout the years.  I'm not where I want to be in my life, but nevertheless, I am happy for her.  But this is what gets me.  She blocked me from her Facebook sometime last fall.  For a while, I was wondering where the pictures she posted of herself were and updated pictures of her family and I thought that maybe she outgrew Facebook and deactivated her account.

Then it came clear to me.  Ava and Vivienne posted pictures of the family.  I would see the comments people made and it looked like an incomplete conversation.  I did a search through Google to look her up to see if she still had her facebook and sure enough she did.  I would click on the link to her facebook and I got an error message telling me the account doesn't exist.  I did a search through my husband's and low and behold, there she was.  I asked my sister if she could do a search for me as well and she was nowhere to be found.

I am not angry with her at all.  I'm just hurt and I would give anything to find out why she blocked me.  I have her phone number so I have debated on calling her to find out what's going on with her.  Also, I have thought about talking to her brothers and sister about this but maybe it's best if I let it be.

I don't know what went wrong with her.  Was it something political that I posted that she didn't like or was it that we've been out of touch for so long that I'm no longer relevant to her?

Her birthday came up and I wanted to tell her so I asked her mother if she could do it for me but I never got any feedback from Vivienne.  Families, no matter if you were close at one point or not need to stick together.  I think it's wrong to cut off someone from your life who has been nothing but kind and supportive of you.

Anyway, there you have it.  It feels good to get this off my chest.