A Year of Blogging: July 24, 2011

July 24 is 'Cousins Day'. My family tree is a little lopsided in the cousin area, at least when you talk about first cousins. I have 13 first cousins- all on Dad's side. We are a diverse group. There are 8 girls and 7 boys. The oldest will be 40 next week, and the youngest will be 24 a month later. The oldest six are close in age- 40, 39 (three of them are 39), 38, and 37. Their mothers are all my Dad's sisters, and they have a lot of fond memories of doing things as a group. I'm #7 in order. I am the oldest grandchild with Primeau as their last name. I am two years younger than the youngest of the 'older six'. We weren't close growing up. We lived about 20 minutes away from Grandma and Grandpa, while everyone else lived much closer (except for one Aunt who lived about an hour in the other direction). Twenty minutes doesn't seem like a lot, but there was a big mountain between our house and Grandma's, and people just didn't want to come way out to Berlin. My age also had something to do with the distance between the cousins. When I was three, they were all in elementary school. When I was in elementary school, they were pre-teens. And when I finally caught up and was a pre-teen and not a dorky little kid, they were teenagers. You get the idea. My sister is #8- smack dab in the middle. She is two and a half years younger than me, and we ended up playing together a lot. The last half of the cousins this year celebrate birthdays 31, 30, 29, 28, 26, 25, and 24. So they are kind of close, and always were. We had the same thing with our ages- I was always that much further ahead of them that we didn't have anything in common. Many times, I was their babysitter. For the youngest ones, I have been away for most of their lives. I went to college at age 18, and haven't lived at home (except for a couple of summers) since then. We would have a family party, and I didn't recognize any of them, because they had hit a growth spurt. I relied on my sister a lot at that time, asking her 'which one is that?' (Now that my cousins have children, I've given up. I know a few of them, and the rest, there's not a chance I can keep them straight. I can tell you the names of my cousins' children, but to pick out which child belongs to which cousin, I can't. On the flip side- they don't have a clue who I am either!) I have gotten closer to some of my cousins now that we are adults. The differences in our ages doesn't matter. Not like in the days when I wanted to play with dolls and the older girls wanted to talk about boys. We all have very different lives, and truthfully, Facebook has probably helped us connect a little better. Most still live in NY, a couple of us have ventured away. I live the furthest away. In a group of 15 adults, there are a lot of personalities that do not always mesh well. But I cherish the ones I do get along with. I consider them cousins and friends. One thing I've learned is that in a family our size, there's a good chance someone else will have had a similar experience. When my sister had a miscarriage six years ago, there were several aunts there to offer support from their first-hand experience. When a younger cousin ended an abusive relationship this winter, I was able to tell her 'you're not alone'. It's comforting to know someone else gets you. It's also nice to know someone will always be there if you need them. Of course, you don't have to just celebrate your first cousins today! You can celebrate second cousins, third cousins, fourth cousins twice removed. As I've been working on the family history, I've been contacted by distant cousins on all sides of the family. I enjoy meeting them, and I've even connected with some on Facebook. My life feels more full with my cousins!