Cousins

I've been thinking recently and I have come to the conclusion that I miss my cousins.

At the risk of stepping on several toes, I must clarify that I am referring to my two older cousins in this instance. Of course, I do love my multitude of younger cousins, but I have a different kind of relationship with Sam and Alex.

In addition to my sister, they were my first friends when I was little. During the earliest years of my life, I spent more time with my sister and my cousins than I did with nearly anyone else. We have countless hours of blackmail worthy footage of our childhood and even though we've all seen it more times that we could say, there's nothing more fun than sitting down together and rediscovering what weird kids we were. It's a reminder of how simple life used to be.

We used to split off into little pairs: Kali and Alex would trundle off, speaking their own made up language that comprised mostly of words slurred around the pacifiers hanging from their mouths, while Sammy and I would play with the dolls or dress-up or whatever other girly things took our fancy. I cannot even tell you all of the inside jokes and hilarious stories I have, mostly because revealing those things on the internet would bring down on my head the murderous anger of those wonderful persons mentioned previously.

The simple fact is this: my cousins are my friends but they are also my family, which means they understand exactly how crazy everything is. When I make new friends, I have to explain, "My mom lives in California, but I live here in Florida because blahblahblah." My cousins don't need an explanation, they know.

We were so close when we were little, and even as we grew older, whenever we got together, things were just great. At every family gathering, they were the ones my sister and I would gravitate to because we wanted to escape from the adults and the little kids.

But now we all have our own lives and we're spread out across the globe. I miss the days when things were simple and easy and we could sit on our grandmother's couch eating red vines and watching movies until two in the morning. Laughing at old family videos just isn't the same when everyone isn't there. How can we laugh at that video of Alex falling on his face when he is miles and miles away with the Marines?

Yes, we're all separated now. When I go to family gatherings, I have no one, because even my sister is 3,000 miles away from me. It's lonely; I'm too old to hang out with my younger siblings and cousins, but apparently not old enough to join in adult conversation. So this being said, I miss my cousins (and my sister, but that's a different story).