Cousins

My cousins are my siblings. I'm an only child. I need them. I bulldog my way into their lives.

We've never lived in the same state yet I know the highs and lows of their lives. Heaven knows that they know way too much about me.

When I was 12-years old, my parents put me on a plane to visit his sister and family. (My first plane trip. My mom commented to my dad, "I hope she makes it.") I saw the ocean for the first time. I bought white platform shoes -- it was the 70s! A new family emerged. We're all grown now and we still lean on each other. They provide business advice and legal counsel. I provide marketing tips and occasional editing.

We share photos and marvel that this shared and weird history has shaped the people we have become. I may not talk to them often enough but there is not a doubt in my mind that I could pick up the phone and say, "Help!" They would come through. I would turn myself inside out to help any of them.

I have a couple of cousins on the other side of my family. I don't know them at all.