family=forever

This weekend my cousin D2 was kind enough to get married so we could have a family reunion in Lexington, KY. Raised as an only child, I got my sibling fix (complete with altercations and time outs from grandma) from my group of tumbling cousins, who now have little tumblers of their own. There's something really special about getting together with a bunch of people you've known since you were small, and their parents who (by virtue of being her siblings) have known your mom since she was small, or just enough bigger to boss them around.

There are so few people in the world who have known us since we were born. To have a whole clan of them seems an amazing gift, that as an adult I have truly learned to appreciate. Initially it's tough to relate to people who saw all the awkward stages, from diapers to glasses to funny poofy hair to bad boy(or girl)friends and all the other stages that one can spend an entire life trying to forget or trying to insist "That wasn't me! That was another person! I'm different now!" But after being past the worst of the awkwardness, it's comforting to have all these people who don't actually care, because they've loved you, or at least teased you, since you were very tiny. To them, probably like with your parents, the "you" that is really true is that cute little person who they once held in their arms or tickled or took to a baseball game, or in one case, the emergency room. (More about that later, but wild mushrooms were involved).

Maybe this time it sunk in because I'm in the middle and can participate on both sides: without children myself, I first drove to Aunt & Uncle M&M's and was tucked in cozily for one night before being driven to Lexington with love. After arriving, I got to play cousin-auntie to the smaller cuties, my cousins' children. Friday night we played chase in the courtyard at the rehearsal dinner, pretended to hide from Mom and Dad (who I graduated high school with), and had a potty party outside the single restroom up a rickety stair at this charming historic home. Saturday little Ada's namesake was learning to swim between her mom - whose own life has enough parallels with my own to be eerie- and me. The reception was the absolute best with dancing and then sleepy bodies who trusted me not to drop them while slowdancing, apparently because I'm related to them. And my personal favorite conversation, with my now-grown cousin whose diapers I changed I was babysitting age, about his friends who are NICKnamed Bill, Willy, and Harold.

So here's the point: family is forever and I'm glad I have enough years in me yet to say THANK YOU to every last one of you. You know who you are.