I was just posting a comment in someone's blog about watching Battlestar Gallactica with my cousins when we were young. When I was growing up I had a lot of cousins. Now when I try to count them I lose track. (I think it was around 18.) We had so much fun! I have mentioned before that I have 4 cousins that were born within 6 months of me. We would go outside and play while or frazzled mothers sat and smoked in the kitchen. But there were even more cousins born a few years later which added to the fun! When my mom remarried I was blessed with even more cousins, all around the same age. The thing that strikes me as strange now is how much closer I feel to my "step" cousins than I do to a couple of my full-blood cousins. I am speaking about one in particular. We were born a week apart and for some reason she was always rather nasty to me. We went to the same high school and should would not even look at me. I remember feeling devastated because I have always set a great store near family. Even now as adults she never replies to my e mails or does anything to try to keep in contact. I have tried to think of what I might have done to cause this and always come up empty. My mom assured me it wasn't me. She said her sister (my cousin's mother) was the same way. It makes me sad. We share a lineage. You all know how much I love geneology. We have a history! But my "step" cousins are completely different. When we see each other we act as if we were kids again. We remember all the fun times we had as children. Playing outside, watching one of my cousins fall down a steep embankment. (I can still see him going over in slow motion.) We thought it was the funniest thing we had ever seen when he crawled back up with branches and twigs attached to his body and a bloody nose! We remember watching Battlestar Gallactica on Saturday nights after dinner with a big bowl of Old Dutch chips that we passed back and forth. We remember collecting snakes, jumping on beds, talent shows, tea parties and messing up bedrooms. We talk about family meals, birthdays, Christmas and Thanksgiving. It was one of the best part of my childhood.
Over the years I have let go of trying to have a relationship with that one cousin. It still makes me sad. We could have been close like sisters. I have always wanted that but it was just not to be. I am however, forever grateful for all the wonderful memories of a whole bushel of cousins!
Happiness does truly lie in being grateful for what we have, rather than wishing hopelessly for that which we cannot.
ReplyDeleteI don't come from a close family so the idea of growing up with 18 cousins is actually quite alien. My nearest family (other than my mum and dad and sister) was 60 miles away, and I hardly ever met them. I have one cousin I've only met once.
ReplyDeleteI had this quote on my calendar one day last week. "Happiness is realizing that there will be some people who don't like us, and there is nothing we can do about it." Something I am always working on. ;)
ReplyDeleteGreat to grow up with cousins! I remember having a good time with my cousin Alan. We never kept in touch when I moved family and he is in Australia now. We spoke briefly at his Mum's funeral. I always feel the connection between us but we were never really together for all that long. I tend to get very attached to people quickly! Doesn't always work the same way round.
I had 50 first cousins on my fathers side of the family, and another 13 on my mother's. There were 9 around the age as my sister and me. They all lived in the same really small town. When We would visit we'd all run a pack. I'm sure they did when we weren't there. My cousin, Donna and I were best friends when we were together. But I have a cousin like yours, but she is about 8 years younger than I am so I didn't really care. I guess there is one in every family.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately we don't get to choose our families, so relationships with them are a real crap shoot. Either we get along or we don't. I don't think you can force the issue. It's sad, but sometimes there isn't anything you can do about it. I have a lot of first cousins (over 30), but only a handful lived in the same city, which didn't leave me many possibilities at relationships.
ReplyDeleteI have 9 cousins and 2 steps. We're not really close. The best time of summer was when my grandma would take the 6 of us local cousins to stay at her house for TWO WEEKS!
ReplyDeleteWe slept out under the mimosa tree on chaise lounges, or in the tiny Airstream camper. During the day, we threw hedgeapples down the sinkhole, rode the tractor, rode the pony, fished in the hog pen pond, made hand-cranked ice cream, played croquet until grandma made us cry by winning all the time, and my favorite, played Annie Annie Over (which was a team game of strategy throwing a ball over the house roof).
It was all fun and games until somebody got the ball lodged against the chimney.
I have 25 first cousins, and only one of them keeps in touch regularly, and most of the rest are flakes.
ReplyDeleteA few years ago I discovered that I do have cousins. They are half a world away - but growing up we had no relatives, so it is a big shock to discover the family is not as small as I thought. And I would have loved to have grown up with an extending family. So much.
ReplyDeleteI have around 30 first cousins, none of which I'm really close to. Growing up, they were either younger or older. My parents mostly hung out with their friends rather than family, I don't remember any big family gatherings as a kid. Weird because I never really thought about it before.
ReplyDeleteWe had several cousins that we were somewhat close to growing up, but then it was like they just disappeared at some point. Supposedly there was something between our parents but I have no idea what it was.
ReplyDeleteFamilies can be such strange things... I'm not close to most of my family. Facebook is about as close as most of us get, some not even that much.
ReplyDeleteI do value family, and it still bothers me sometimes that we aren't closer. Like you, I've always wondered what I could have done to alienate them.
My mother an I are very close. We talk several times a day. I have a wonderful husband, a terrific son, and two great step-sons. For now, that's enough.
I figure it's their loss. You are a wonderful person and anyone would be blessed to have you in their life. I know you've blessed mine.
xo
It's amazing to me how relationships can change and how some don't endure but others do.
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