Looking back at myself looking forward

I have an epic family. The benefit to this is not only watching a physical progression of what you will look like as you age but also watching how you were and how you may be unfold.

I know, for example, that like my father, my patience will thin in proportion to my eyebrows. I know that, like my mother, my eccentricities will grow in proportion to my collection of eclectic scarves and bracelets.

I know that as an infant I had the same concerned look on my face as my niece, and that she is going to grow up to throw some wicked tantrums and probably will have an awful sense of balance.

I guess you could say that my family is kind of like my mirror. But less like a mirror and more like one of those crazy mosaics made out of busted mirrors, where every reflection shard gives you a slightly different view of yourself.

My favorite mirror, though, has got to be my cousin. Not a cousin by blood, since my mom will get technical, but by those invisible tendrils that are much more important in defining who your family is.

She's a fellow middle child, she's loud (so loud), she's wicked funny and 70% of the time her family thinks she's certifiably insane. She's held a long list of secret blogs, which I also secretly read voraciously, like reading a diary I had forgotten I wrote. Personal, detached, emotional. Good writing.

It's a burden to be told you're "just like" somebody, so I won't do that. But I'll say that I see in her all those brilliant and beautiful things that I could never see in myself, and that she probably doesn't see right now. Which is fine, because she'll find it slowly, looking back.