AHHH FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK

It's the first time in my life that my cousin has reached out to me, and I couldn't even be there to help her.

She facebook msg'd me an hour ago sounding cheery as usual, asking for my phone number. She said she tried calling what she thought was still my number, but an old lady picked up. She apologized and deleted it.

I gave her my newest digits, curious to see what was up. She's the closest cousin I've ever had and yet we rarely talk outside of the occasional comments on fb statuses.

Turns out her parents had gotten drunk and started fighting. They became so upset with each other and "it just got so ridiculously stupid that I needed someone to talk to."

So she called me. Fuck.

I've always loved this bix since I was little. When I was four, my family moved to the states because my dad was taking his sabbatical at UCSD. Before we were able to find a place in San Diego to get settled in, my aunt took us in at her house in Temecula for a couple weeks. Angie must have been 1 at the time, and Brian hadn't even been born.

Since then we would only see each other a couple times a year, mainly during holidays. When we moved back to California from Oregon, I saw her more often. By then I was in fourth grade, and her family had moved to Hacienda Heights, which is just about 40 minutes away from Fullerton.

Even when I was just 9 I admired Angie for her maturity. With the kind of craziness she's been through in her life, I'm impressed at how sane and smart she's turned out. As a toddler she was never the annoying little cousin. She's always had a good head on her shoulders, always.

And yet we don't really have a relationship. The last time our families met was maybe a year and a half ago for Korean BBQ. As our moms yammered away, I chatted it up with Angie like we normally do during these sporadic encounters. Except this particular night was a little more... interesting. We talked about getting high. And thizzing. Mostly my own stories because she told me she didn't mess with any of that stuff, even though all of her friends did. It was the first time I talked so candidly with her sans the filter of "this is my baby cousin, I need to set a good example."

After dinner wrapped up and both families bid each other goodnight, I thought about Angie for most of the ride home. I thought about how cool she was and how weird it was that we never hung out. I thought about how it's still a little difficult for me to see her as an actually legit, real-ass person, not just my baby cousin.

It quickly dawned on me, though, that the lack of communication between us was mostly a result of my own lack of effort. I mean I'm the older one. I had a cellphone. I had a car throughout most of high school. She lives 40 minutes away. Why didn't I ever hit her up? Why didn't I ever think to hang out with her outside of these awkward family dinners?

Whenever anyone asks me about my extended family, I always complain that I wish I had cool cousins I was closer to. I realized that night that I've indeed had countless opportunities. I just never took advantage of them.

Who else would it have been to fulfill that desire for familial closeness but Angie. Everyone else kind of sucks. My older cousins, Andrew and Jane (Angie and Brian's half brother and sister), moved to the states to live with my aunt when they were in high school. Before then, neither set of siblings knew of each others' existence.

That's some real shit. And the tension has yet to dissipate.

Upon Andrew and Jane's arrival to the US in '98, I was Jane's first introduction to American "culture". The first couple times she came over, my mom told us to go upstairs and talk, get to know each other, whatever. She's about 4 or 5 years older than me, and there was an obvious language barrier, but I still embraced my hosting duties wholeheartedly. I showed her my BSB book and lent her my NSYNC cd. We talked about the differences between students in Korea and students in America. She told me that if I went to school in Korea with the level of Korean I speak, I'd probably get teased. She was chill about it, though, so I didn't trip.

But about the third time she came over, she didn't seem interested in going upstairs with me. I lingered on the stairwell expecting her to follow. She opted to stay downstairs with the adults.

Since then, I've barely spoken three full sentences to her.

These days, my mom and my aunt usually trade off hosting duties during Thanksgiving and Christmas, but every holiday it's always the same. The adults eat in the dining room, Andrew, Jane and my brother eat in the family room (where they talk about grown-up things in Korean), and I eat with Angie and Brian in the living room (where the TV is playing either Jingle All the Way, Elf, or a current animated feature). I'm 22 and I still don't feel comfortable anywhere else but at the kiddie table.

During these somewhat brief interactions, our conversations don't extend past discussions of movies we've watched recently and what kind of music we're into at the moment. It's always small talk. Entertaining, but small talk nonetheless.

Maybe it's all I've ever cared to get out of our interactions, but maybe this is so because it's all I've ever known in my own life. I've never had an older cousin or sibling reach out to me and try to get to know me on a personal level. My own brother would tiresomely put in effort to make sure I wasn't a part of his life. At this point, I've come to terms with the fact that I honestly don't know how to carry myself as the "older" cousin/friend/anything. It's always proven to be an awktastic experience for me that's easier to avoid.

But here she is, calling me at 3:00AM because her parents are fighting and she needs someone to talk to.

Her message made me a little sad. It reminded me of when she posted a fb profile picture of her receiving her jr. high diploma with the caption, "graduation.. my mom didn't come : (..." When I read that, I wanted nothing more than to have been there for her.

And I wanted nothing more than to have been there for her today.

This could be my second chance, you know. I told her to call me tomorrow because I have literally nothing to do with my life right now but look for a job. I hope she does. It's not too late to become closer to my cousin, and though it's something I never bothered putting much effort into, I'm ready to try now. And it's making me really very excited.