I BOUGHT A T-SHIRT that says, “Aunty’s Worst Nightmare.” It’s an accurate description of me in the eyes of many traditional Sri Lankan aunties. I’ll never be an “appropriate” Sri Lankan American Buddhist. I’m unmarried and childfree by choice, I’m loud, I curse, I take up space (metaphorically, physically, and conversationally), and I’m fat. Worst of all, I’m totally content with it!
As a thirty-seven-year-old woman, I’m in a strange transitional phase when it comes to the Sri Lankan American community. For people in their twenties and thirties, I’m “akki,” or “older sister.” For people in their forties, I’m “nangi,” or “younger sister.” But for anyone younger than that, I’ve become Schrodinger’s aunty, simultaneously aunty and not aunty.
A few years ago, while talking to a nine-year-old at my temple, I asked who her parents were. She then pulled her mother’s sleeve, pointed at me, and said, “That aunty wants to talk
