Blog: A Cousin Is Your First Best Friend

We're only six months apart, yet she's always had years of maturity on me.
Mostly...
But let's go back....My cousin Valerie and I used to play in the back of my Dad's work truck. On the quiet cul-de-sac of the street, in my aunt and uncle's yard, we would climb up the tires of my dad's truck and into the back and climb all over the sheet metal, tools, work equipment and other "dangerous" things (kids dont get to play outside anymore, do they?) and imagine all sorts of adventures until it got dark and Auntie Irene called us back in for dinner.

For dinner, Valerie would ask for Chicken McNuggets. Her mom would say no...then they would push me in..

'Auntie Irene, can we have chicken nuggets?" I would ask.

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Happy meal time!
We laugh at that a lot.

Countless Friday nights, I would sleep over and  we would play video games all night longs, then get up and watch saturday morning cartoons.  She once tricked me into watching Pee Wee's Playhouse every saturday by telling me that there was an episode where they played with He Man figures. There were times I even watched it home on my own, hoping for that episode.

​I still haven't forgiven her...
But I still laugh at it...

We spent an entire summer devoted to Super Mario 3. We bought oreo's and soda because each had contests when you could win the game or nintendo prizes. Something I loved about those days was being able to walk to the hamburger place nearby and buy food by ourselves...I felt like such a grown up. It was nothing to her (again, she was more mature) but for me...wow.
Then we'd go home and play super mario 3. I remember watching "The Wizard" and seeing the little boy discover the warp zone, and looking at her and yelling "whoa!" and going to find it.

She hung around a couple of older girls for a while. I had a crush on one of them...Burgandy. I told Valerie...she told Burgandy...lol

I did forgive her for that one...
and it makes me laugh.

She put up with my video game addiction, my ninja turtle addiction...G I Joe. HE-Man...and I listened to her go on and on about American Gladiators, WWF, baseball cards and so on...we were so different...yet we we always together- laughing.
I don't know if anyone makes me laugh hard

I look back at those times of laughter and laziness,  where our biggest care was king koopa, and I smile. It was a happy time. Yet I lived in that time a lot longer...

She was always leap years ahead of me.
She got a job when she was a teenager.. I got a super nintendo.
She got a car when she was a teenager. I got an N64.
She got her own place. I sang in musicals in a community theatre.
She works with numbers and does things I don't understand... I write musicals...

but we still laugh together. Whether its at my car not starting in her driveway, or our friend Amanda falling down  a hill, or the many many funny stories in our family... We confide in each other.  She was there to talk to when I came out. She was there to help me get over my ex in a creative (and somewhat illegal) way. I went to her house to carve pumpkins one night when we were both lonely. We shared dark secrets. We helped each other out. I'd do anything for her.  We're family. We're friends. Best friends even.

I look at Valerie and see one of the strongest people I know.I see someone I can totally trust and depend on. She has a spine of steel and a heart of gold. She is a "Garcia."  She can be as stubborn as her dad, while being as loving as her mom. She is comically abrasive as all hell, while wearing her heart on her sleeve. When it comes to friends and family...there is no one more loyal and supporting as her.  She looks at things intelligently and emotionally. I admire her intensity and am a little frightened. (She's always been able to beat me up.)

She is one of my favorite people in the whole world.