Family Ties

After several months of being somewhat occupied with the goings on of my full life, I finally got in touch with two of my cousins yesterday night. Turns out they were fairly busy themselves, being newlyweds and moving, and working, etc. Kinda neat to finally catch up--- sometimes I worry that we become so isolated in our separate lives, that maybe family is just an abstract term and that maybe we don't need it... just feel disconnected sometimes.When we catch up, it's like we're undeniably family and I feel reassured that they still care, and then I realize just how much I miss them.

What's interesting now is that we're in about the same stage of life, early 30's, and figuring out the things that are especially relevant right now--- significant others, marriage, family, faith and balancing out things, prioritizing. Sometimes I wonder if we're going to turn out like our parents' generation, if we're going to fail at the same things, or if we're going to change our course and take a different turn altogether. I appreciate when we are able to share our concerns and triumphs... there's comfort in knowing that we're just people who are trying to navigate through life the best we can, and that we can still talk to each other about them.

Anyhow, in short, I've really missed my cousins and was very happy to hear from them. And I was even happier to be able to share with them the news of my life, and tell them about John. Way back when we were in college, we used to talk about how if there was a special person in our life, we would want to share that with each other. I think both my cousins shared that news with me when they started dating their girlfriends (now, wives). So it was nice to finally be able to share that piece of news with them. So after getting the thrid degree from them about the details, it was so cool to get their support. The warm fuzzies of having surrogate older brothers who watch out for me is something this independent, capable first-born girl really likes.

My family just rocks.