‘The only thing constant in the world is change’

My younger cousin Joelle got married over the weekend. The days leading up to the wedding were pretty intense, both in terms of my whole family being in the same house and getting ready for the reception (which was at our house in Dambach) but also because of all the emotions that we, or at least I, were feeling. Joelle and I hung out together in Strasbourg last week and I was hit with this feeling of how profoundly our family dynamics were changing. I feel like a significant part of our childhood is over, those days when we would excitedly tell each other about our crushes and boyfriends and first kisses and break-ups. Now she has that part of her life resolved and has created her own little family unit – it will never just be ‘Joelle’ again but now ‘Joelle and Ben’. Luckily Ben is a terrific guy and fits in well with the family and makes a great additional cousin. So it’s definitely change in a positive direction...and after reflecting, I have to laugh a little about how traumatized I tend to get by any sort of change.