Kindred Spirits
It seems that my appreciation for family grows with every year that passes.
I spent last week in the North Carolina mountains with 50 of my closest family members. This annual reunion is a tradition which has been in place since I was 8-years-old and is miraculously still going strong.
I loved the reunion as a child. My cousins and I made crafts, played hide and seek, teased each other mercilessly and basically had a bang up time. But in typical surly, pre-teen fashion, the family reunion spiraled out of my favor as soon as I hit the middle school social scene. The thought of missing a single glorious afternoon flirting with boys at the neighborhood pool to be forced to wear matching t-shirts for things like "potluck night" sent me into a prickly bitterness. My family was lame, my cousins were dorks and the world was completely and utterly unfair (of course).
But as I got older, my viewpoint shifted. The reunions slowly morphed from excruciating endeavors to tolerable obligations to enjoyable vacations.
I now look forward to my annual reunion with fervor—it's the only time all year that the people I love most in this world are gathered together in a single place.
This year was no exception. As I approached the familiar town limit sign, joy welled up to the point of almost bursting. The minute I parked my car and flew up the familiar steps, I felt completely at home. My favorite cousins were waiting and within minutes, we fell into our natural repartee as if a year’s time never separated us.
One afternoon, after laughing until gasping for breath, sprawled side-by-side across the floor of the “cousins’ house”, I looked around at the faces surrounding me and felt truly thankful. For the first time, it hit home that these amazing people were mine. I belonged to them and they to me.
They’d been there through my bout with scrunchies and bike shorts, my too-cool adolescent attitude and mean-spirited practical jokes. They’d seen me at my absolute worst and loved me anyway.
Despite our obvious differences, their faces and spirits somehow reflect my own. Within these unique individuals lies my home away from home. Within these unique individuals lies not only my identity, but absolute proof that I’m one of the luckiest girls in the world.
Despite still being made to wear matching reunion t-shirts at the age of 24.
I spent last week in the North Carolina mountains with 50 of my closest family members. This annual reunion is a tradition which has been in place since I was 8-years-old and is miraculously still going strong.
I loved the reunion as a child. My cousins and I made crafts, played hide and seek, teased each other mercilessly and basically had a bang up time. But in typical surly, pre-teen fashion, the family reunion spiraled out of my favor as soon as I hit the middle school social scene. The thought of missing a single glorious afternoon flirting with boys at the neighborhood pool to be forced to wear matching t-shirts for things like "potluck night" sent me into a prickly bitterness. My family was lame, my cousins were dorks and the world was completely and utterly unfair (of course).
But as I got older, my viewpoint shifted. The reunions slowly morphed from excruciating endeavors to tolerable obligations to enjoyable vacations.
I now look forward to my annual reunion with fervor—it's the only time all year that the people I love most in this world are gathered together in a single place.
This year was no exception. As I approached the familiar town limit sign, joy welled up to the point of almost bursting. The minute I parked my car and flew up the familiar steps, I felt completely at home. My favorite cousins were waiting and within minutes, we fell into our natural repartee as if a year’s time never separated us.
One afternoon, after laughing until gasping for breath, sprawled side-by-side across the floor of the “cousins’ house”, I looked around at the faces surrounding me and felt truly thankful. For the first time, it hit home that these amazing people were mine. I belonged to them and they to me.
They’d been there through my bout with scrunchies and bike shorts, my too-cool adolescent attitude and mean-spirited practical jokes. They’d seen me at my absolute worst and loved me anyway.
Despite our obvious differences, their faces and spirits somehow reflect my own. Within these unique individuals lies my home away from home. Within these unique individuals lies not only my identity, but absolute proof that I’m one of the luckiest girls in the world.
Despite still being made to wear matching reunion t-shirts at the age of 24.
posted by Rachel at 8:28 PM
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