3/3
The one familial thing i've never really gotten a handle on is cousins.
I think that's partially due to the lack of a universal consistency in cousinal relations. Some people I know are best friends with their cousins and others don't ever see or know them. How the hell am I supposed to know what to do with them based all your piss poor examples.
My mother's side only has cousins who are much older than me even if they are delightfully half hippy, half robot amongst themselves. When I've ever met them it's tended to be a sort of them babysitting me or them as another aunt/uncle-ish person who I need to know less about.
Now my father's side is where I run my happy family ship aground a bit more. They are mostly around my age and half of them even live in Edmonton or a reasonable distance away.
So now there are these boys and girls my age who are floated around on holiday occasions who I must interact with but there's less impetus to like/impress them than a grandmother and less need to love them than a sibling.
So then i'm left there with the youthful casts of Third Watch and Seventh Heaven (my personal situation, not a grand metaphor) trying to figure out what to say and how to present myself. I could see, in another time and place, being friends perhaps with a few of them...peripherally.
But our chatter is never friendly. It's random stories usually. Personal shtick sometimes. but it always ends the same way:
talking about experiences every human should have because it's all we can relate to.
eating. sexuality. job.
WOAH
please tell me the rest of you are confused and awkwarded out by cousins? Am I the only one. They fall clearly into the us vs. them non-nuclear level of family yet, they are our age and should we not embrace them as we'd embrace any other random youth?
oh well. i've got a 6th month period to mull on this
cam
The one familial thing i've never really gotten a handle on is cousins.I think that's partially due to the lack of a universal consistency in cousinal relations. Some people I know are best friends with their cousins and others don't ever see or know them. How the hell am I supposed to know what to do with them based all your piss poor examples.
My mother's side only has cousins who are much older than me even if they are delightfully half hippy, half robot amongst themselves. When I've ever met them it's tended to be a sort of them babysitting me or them as another aunt/uncle-ish person who I need to know less about.
Now my father's side is where I run my happy family ship aground a bit more. They are mostly around my age and half of them even live in Edmonton or a reasonable distance away.
So now there are these boys and girls my age who are floated around on holiday occasions who I must interact with but there's less impetus to like/impress them than a grandmother and less need to love them than a sibling.
So then i'm left there with the youthful casts of Third Watch and Seventh Heaven (my personal situation, not a grand metaphor) trying to figure out what to say and how to present myself. I could see, in another time and place, being friends perhaps with a few of them...peripherally.
But our chatter is never friendly. It's random stories usually. Personal shtick sometimes. but it always ends the same way:
talking about experiences every human should have because it's all we can relate to.
eating. sexuality. job.
WOAH
please tell me the rest of you are confused and awkwarded out by cousins? Am I the only one. They fall clearly into the us vs. them non-nuclear level of family yet, they are our age and should we not embrace them as we'd embrace any other random youth?
oh well. i've got a 6th month period to mull on this
cam
posted by Cam at 12:05 AM
3 Comments:
only you could be poumpos enough to ensinuate that someone would mistake something you had written for a "grand metaphor".
i love you cam.
I am with you, I am confused by cousin relations. So I don't think you are alone. I mean I used to see two cousins (part of a family with eight cousins) every summer and winter for a bit of time and I thought we were best friends. Then one day I went to one of their weddings and realized I barely even knew them.
And then I didn't go to one cousin's wedding who I barely ever see and he was very upset about it. I think conversations with cousins never go beyond what you described, for me at least. I went from being the younger kid who tried to tag along and be cool with my cousins, to the one who showed up with disgustingly long hair at their wedding wearing vans slip-ons to try to get their attention. So, I guess that means I wish I had a better relationship with them?
My situation is kind of unique...
My mom moved out when she was 17 and had a very trying relationship with her father which lead to not really being close with any of her 7 siblings. Then she married my dad and when they had kids, he encouraged her to re-establish a relationship with her dad for the sake of me and my brother as on my dad's side there was only his mom and his sister.
Anyways, I grew up knowing my mom had a large family but never being close to them, spending more time with my dad's side: my grandma, aunt and uncle and 3 cousins all at least 10 years older than me (and also adopted, not that that mattered though).
Between December 2000 and September 2002, my mom's dad, my dad's sister and my dad's mom all passed away. Since my grandpa died, I have not seen anyone from my mom's side of the family (save her sisters) And after the last remaining blood relatives died on my dad's side (combined with a bad argument over my grandma's will I don't know the whole story too) I haven't heard from anyone on that side of the family either.
Anyways, my point is I had weird babysitter type relationships with the cousins I knew, didn't know a lot of my other cousins but now, don't talk to any of them.
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