My Only Bitchy Cousin Is A Yankee-type Guy- The... -

His "bitchiness" wasn't cruelty. It was competence disguised as irritability. Growing up, I thought love was soft. Love was never raising your voice, never disagreeing, never making waves. Liam taught me that real love is sometimes abrasive. Real love says, "You’re better than this." Real love holds up a mirror.

Let me paint you a picture. Thanksgiving dinner, 1998. A humid Georgia evening, the scent of pecan pie still clinging to the air, and the sound of college football roaring from the den. Then he walked in. Crisp, collar-popped, talking about "Masshole traffic" and asking where the real coffee was. That was the first time I met my cousin Liam. And within fifteen minutes, I had already mentally filed him under the title that would stick for twenty-six years: My only bitchy cousin is a Yankee-type guy. My Only Bitchy Cousin Is a Yankee-Type Guy- The...

In it, he pointed out that my grandmother was "hoarding expired canned goods from the Clinton administration," that my uncle’s "jokes" about politics were "veiled bigotry," and that the family’s refusal to talk about mental health was "why three of us have ulcers." His "bitchiness" wasn't cruelty

If you have a "bitchy cousin," especially one from a different region or cultural background, don’t write them off. Don’t hide them at the kids’ table. Sit next to them. Let them offend you a little. You might just learn something. Love was never raising your voice, never disagreeing,