Wednesday, December 27, 2006

i have a cousin on my father's side who is four months younger than me. she and i have always been close, as have sister and her brother, who are also close in age. we had sleepovers as teenagers, exchanged christmas and birthday presents, and even though we rarely saw each other, were buddies. i was one of the first people she told when she discovered she was pregnant at 18 or 19. mother and i went to her baby shower. my parents bought her a crib. after moving to another state with her boyfriend, she mailed me pictures of the baby.

after my father's accident, when everything went to shit, rumors started flying like crazy around the family. my dad got some money from an insurance policy and insisted i buy a "new" car (read: new to me). i argued against it. my car was a 17-year old p.o.s. but it was my first car and i loved it. he said that the fact that it constantly broke down worried him for my safety, so i gave in and bought a newer used car. my cousin and i had a confrontation when she repeated rumors to my face as if they were true, namely ones about my mother and about the fact that i had taken my father's insurance money to buy myself a brand new car. words were exchanged that were not pretty. my cousin told me that she didn't have a new car because her father could walk.

this was over a year ago and we haven't spoken since. every so often she sends me myspace friend requests but i either deny or ignore them. she has never apologized; just wants to forget it happened.

anyway, sister discovered from her myspace profile that she and her boyfriend are no longer together and she has moved back in with her mother. this has gotten me thinking... she is a single mother now and she's my age. maybe i should make peace with her because she could probably use a friend. sister thinks it would be something of a betrayal to my parents if i forgive my cousin. i just see it as being the bigger person, and it's not like either of my parents will care very much if i talk to her again.

what should i do? hold the grudge or let it go?

2 comments:

WOLVERINE said...

Depends. Do you really think you can just forget and move on without some form of apology? You can be the bigger person an' still harbor a grudge that'll bite yer ass when ya least expect. Do what ya think is right, all ya can do. And don't think about it in terms of betrayin' yer 'rents. Pretty sure they don't want ya fightin' their battles anyway. This is strictly between you an' yer cousin an' how ya feel about her after all the shit went down.

Anonymous said...

"And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us."


forgive.(i didn't say to forgive and forget but to forgive.)