Bliver Cousins

It was July in 1991 or 1992, and my cousin Megan and I were riding in the back seat of our grandparents' Pontiac Bonneville, on our way home from the annual 4th of July Picnic/Family Reunion.

It was late, and dark, and we were zooming (or what we thought was zooming) along on a dirt road in the middle of farm land, and listening to AM radio. The topic of conversation that evening was cirrhosis of the liver.

At one point in the segment, Megan and I swore, and still do to this day, that the guy talking on the radio slipped and said cirrhosis of the bliver. We looked at each other like, "No, that's not right...is it?" And immediately broke out into a giggle fit, as 12 year old girls are wont to do. There was some stern talking to from our grandpa, and our giggles were a little more quiet.

After that, we referred to ourselves as The Bliver Cousins. Nobody else really understood why, but we did, and that's all that matters.

Fast forward 16 years and we still call ourselves The Bliver Cousins, which always makes us laugh. It's our own little secret society. Our own version of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood.

It's amazing how something so small, so seemingly insignificant when it happens, sticks around.

We are a far cry from those two girls, with bad mall hair, and even worse earrings, one living in California, one living in Texas.

We're now both almost 30, both at that pivotal point in our lives where we really start to question who we are and why we're here and what is the next step from here, and more importantly, how do we get there from here? Careers, further education, marriage, babies...where does it all fit?

We speak daily via profuse amounts of email, and almost daily via phone, and usually once a week, one will say to the other, "Get out of my head!", as our thoughts are often so similar it's eerie.

Even after a time where we weren't in each others lives, it didn't matter. We picked right back up as if we never missed a beat. There was no readjustment period. It was just BAM! here we are. The Bliver Cousins ride again!

She is my rock, my ground, and has a fabulous knack for hanging pictures in precarious places. I am her geek, who she lovingly listens as I go on and on about the latest gadget or car thing, when she could really could care less. Our paths, while completely different in some cases, will always cross in others.

I'm not sure how it always happens, but we don't have to go looking for trouble, trouble usually finds us first, and when it does, we usually break out into the giggles like 12 year old girls.

Why? Because we're the Bliver Cousins.