The One Where I Reconnect With a Family Member

I know I rip on my family a lot on this blog, so I wanted to share something really nice that happened to me today.

I have a myspace account. I have to say that I find myspace ridiculous, and I thought it was mostly for teenagers, but several of my college friends set up profiles and asked me to join. They're really silly about it, and I don't have a lot of time for another online thing, so I resisted joining for awhile. Strangely, now, I'm really glad I did, mainly just because of the massive volume of people who are on it. I'm now hearing from college friends that I haven't heard from in years. I've found old high school friends on there and reconnected with them.

And, today, the myspace account truly paid off because I reconnected with a family member that I shouldn't have lost track of.

I grew up white trash, more so than I will ever admit on this blog, and most of my family is very backward in the way they feel about women and other races. It's very hard to stay friends with family members who I was very close with growing up because of how different our views on life are. I don't know how many of you experience this (of course you do, Mon, since we have the same family :), but it's very hard to balance how much you love your family with how much you disagree with their philosophies. So I moved to Los Angeles and pretty much never talk to anyone from that time in my life.

Today, one of my cousin's oldest son invited me to be his friend on myspace. He has two other brothers and when they were little boys, Mon and I hated them. They were always tormenting us and terrorizing our stuff. But they grew into wonderful young men and the oldest actually used to visit me at KU and go to basketball games with me. But once I moved to Dallas, I never talked to him. The only time I've seen him since I graduated from college was at my grandma's funeral just after I moved to Los Angeles. I can't tell you how thrilled I was when I clicked on his name to see who he was and saw a picture of him -- looking EXACTLY like his dad, by the way -- smiling back at me. Looking through his page, I realized how much we had in common in spite of our differing philosophies, which I'm sure he's outgrown in much the same way that I have.

I immediately sent him a message telling him how happy I was to hear from him and how I couldn't wait to get to know him as an adult. He immediately wrote me back that he was psyched to see that I didn't hit the "deny" button and that we needed to get together soon because he missed me so much. Then, he said that he had been trying to get my cousin, who I was once very good friends with, to join myspace as well and when he told him that he had located "like only the coolest person in the world" on myspace that he thought this cousin would also join.

It's amazing how such a brief encounter with a family member can make you feel so good. (It can have the exact opposite effect, of course, and often does.) But it's always nice to remember that no matter how different you are and no matter how long that you go between visits, you always have a connection with the family you knew as a child. I hope we continue to keep in touch. I certainly won't be canceling my myspace account any time soon.