Blue Jean Baby

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Valley Village, CA: One of my favorite parts of being in my temporary west coast home is sitting in my backyard patio at the end of a long day and catching up on blogs. My Google Reader list is fairly long, mainly filled with people I don't know, discovered initially by one piece I read months ago and decided to follow.

But there are a few of "real" friends that I stay up with via the interwebs. Specifically, there is one family member whom I follow via her Tumblr page: my cousin Ally.

Ally is actually my second cousin (daughter of MB, granddaughter of Dooey -- my Godmother & sister to my Mom). I best remember her as the finicky blond baby who lived in Northern California with the side of my family that I didn't know a ton about but fantasized about the amount of siblings they shared.

Ally - blond baby on the left with MB, Terry & Becky.

From occasional visits over the years, I remember her growing as tall as a weed, practicing woodwind instruments, loving Harry Potter and being über smart.

Ally is now 22 years old, goes to college in Berkeley, CA and is simply stunning.

Her blogs are entertaining and insightful. Since she uses Tumblr, they're filled with more pictures and video clips than actual long-format writing pieces. Some of my recent favorites have been:

An ode to Judy Garland.

Looking forward to tomorrow.

Welcoming me to the world.

But every now & then, she posts something with a little more substance. This one, in particular, spoke right to my heart:

If the strong warrior Ally came out from hibernation right about now she would say:
Practice.
The persistence of changing yourself just because you’re afraid of someone leaving you, is not love and it is not loving yourself. Only work on the things that you think will make you a better person FOR YOU.
You have a life that does not surround around being wanted. Remind yourself of that every day.
Your boyfriend loves you. Stop changing his sentences into twisted connections fitting into your insecurities. That is not fair.
If it gets too rough, and you are not happy Ally, have the guts to move on. That is one of your weakest points. You are so afraid of losing people that you lose yourself first, and that is what precisely pushes people away. YOU HAVE TO BE YOUR PRIORITY.
If you get upset, take a walk and then rationally talk.

Being a warrior is so hard.

Who is this eloquent and thoughtful woman I barely know (yet am related to by blood)?

A month ago, she posted this:

~~I must agree, so do I.~~

Actually, after reading a few more posts, I'd like to retract my previous statement and, instead, say thi:

I love who you already are -- right now -- a lot.