sister/aunt sandra.

Call me Sandra. Most people do, though a lot of them mispronounce it. They call me "Saundra," with that exotic "ah" sound. So I correct them and then purposefully mispronounce their name until they get it right or they just start calling me "obnoxious girl" instead. I let little kids misprounounce my name, because it's cute. My nephew used to call me "Sanra," which I thought was so adorable that I kind of regret that his parents worked with his speech impediment.

Some of my nieces and nephews call me "Aunt Sandra." Again, I'm not going to correct them, because it is true that I am their aunt. But I don't like that either. It is too formal, a name for some distant sister of your mother that you never see who sends you birthday cards featuring bunnies even up until you are in your twenties. A young woman who picks you up and snuggles you and blows raspberries on your stomach and sneaks you some candy when your parents aren't looking, she's more of a plain old Sandra. My siblings teach their children to refer to me as such to teach them respect, because as an adult relative, I am in a position of authority, so I get a title. I guess this makes sense for little kids. Older kids will have figured out the concept of authority by then and will know without having to rely on a word to help them tell the difference. So even though I don't particularly like it, I don't want to make an issue of it. I'm not trying to undermine my siblings' parenting. Whatever variation of my name a cute kid uses, and cute ones are the only kind we have in my family, I'm going to answer.

My brother Knocker calls me "Sister" as if it were my name, which makes me feel like a nun. I'm not a nun, or if I am, I am the worst nun ever. All the other nuns are singing "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Sandra?" as we speak. Knocker calls me "Sister" to stress our relationship, because relationships are the actual fabric of our lives, no matter what those cotton people tell you. I approve of this idea, but I think that referring to me as "Sister" actually has the opposite effect. It stresses that we have a familial relationship, but it makes it seem as though we lack a familiar one.

My identity is very wrapped up in this name that I carry. I am a sister many times over, but to refer to me solely as such leaves out all the other things that I am. I am a software engineer, I am a wine drinker, I am a writer, I am a southerner, I am a cheapskate, I am a smart aleck, I am quite a lot of things. I cannot be defined by a simple noun. It would take far too long to refer to me by all the things that I am, so just call me "Sandra" and that encompasses all that other stuff, even the stuff you may not even know about. And yes, I know that there are other Sandras, even ones who share my last name, for instance, my mother. But I can say with all honesty and modesty that no one is Sandra quite the way that I am.

I probably worry about this too much, and I think I know why. It's actually because I am a sister, specifically the fact that I am a baby sister to five other people. You try growing up with five older siblings and not developing a bit of an identity obsession. Other people treat my relation to someone else as my name. I do not know how many times someone has asked me, "Oh, are you such-and-such's sister?" I'm sure I just grit my teeth and smiled and replied in the affirmative. I think now that I will start responding with a big smile and "That is just one of the many things that I am."