Thursday, June 10, 2010

"Cousins by blood - friends by choice." ~ Darlene Shaw

Well, I know it's been a while since I've posted anything (jet lag is a bear), but this was a beginning of a post from around May 28th:

I've been working on my Student ID (which will help with the money aspect of the trip - discounts!).  I finally finished and it looks spiffin', complete with a watermark and a barcode (no kidding!).  Anyhow, I've been thinking about Melis (my cousin) and I, and our friendship.

I guess it wasn't easy for us to be best friends, and we weren't at first.  Living a good distance away from each other, we grew up as little kids not seeing each other very much (although for both of us, we saw each otrher pretty much more than we saw any other extended family.)  We didn't click well at first, even though we could get along.  I was a little brat at the time, and Melis was a year younger, and we both got frustrated and annoyed easily.  Our differences polarized us rather than bringing us together.

Obviously, such is not the case anymore.  Especially over the past 4 or 5 years, we've both grown up a great deal, and the two of us have both taken a lot of joy and comfort in the things we share, and have been interested in each other's differences.  We have come to learn a lot from each other, and we respect each other.  We're best friends now, yes.  But it's taken shared laughter and tears, some everyday life and learning together to get us there.  We both love to learn about other cultures, are both very driven towards education, have both been exposed to a lot of different types of everything!

By blood, we're cousins.  We spent a little bit of time together growing up.  But our backgrounds were very different.  But now, we're friends... and I'm glad. :-)

Alright guys!  Hello to Hannah (my sister ;-)): I love you, take care... and to Mom and Dad the same.  I will probably post a VERY long one soon about the actual flight, etc, and all the places we've been already in Istanbul... it's been almost 5 days since we arrived!  (I still can't hardly believe it, but my feet are protesting loudly as I write, so I must not be dreaming...)  Anyway, love you all!...
        ~Bekah

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Bx! haha yes, I just commented on your other post from today but i just got around to reading this one =) sounds like you and Melis are fast friends for life =) i love it when you come across someone (even if it takes a while for the friendship to start) with whom you can have a lifelong relationship with =) i have a few friends (mostly in MY church [if you know what i mean]) but some elsewhere that i am blessed to call friend =) oh, i have some new news (haha) for you, but it'd take too long to write here, so i'll email =) haha love ya!
Margrette