I grew up wanting to be a part of the Brady Bunch.  We all did.  The All American Family, right?  Wait a second, they were a blended family.  Fine.  I’ll be the 9th kid in “Eight is Enough”.  Hold the phones…that’s not their Mom.  Maybe I’ll just have to settle for the Ingalls Family, outdoor toilet and all.  Before they got desperate for plot lines, moved to the big city, adopted Jason Bateman and Shannon Dougherty after that horrible wagon accident, and blew up the whole flippin’ town.

Maybe The All American Family is exactly what we say it is, whatever it has come to be, and whatever happiness we choose to infuse into it.  To illustrate my point, every year I host The All American Family Birthday Dinner, somewhere near the Valentines Holiday, and this year, on Valentines Day.  It’s a joint birthday party for me, my sister, my stepfather, and my soon to be stepmother.  Yes, you read that correctly, and no, we’re not all on Xanax.  Anymore.  We’re not on Xanax anymore.

My parents divorced 17 years ago (WHERE did the years GO PEOPLE?!!).  Amicably, respectfully, and with the understanding that Jenny and I had no intention of being from a divorced family.  So when my parents remarried, and when Jenny and I married Jason and Greg, it came with the added bonus that everyone married into one big family.  We spend our holidays and birthdays together.  We attend family reunions together.  We break bread around the same dinner table several times a year.  Just…all of us…and somewhere along the way, we forgot that this portion of our journey as a family, began as an ending.

It’s not what I had planned in my grand scheme, but I don’t wish it to be different.  It has become what we’ve made it to be, and it did not happen by accident.  It’s taken a lot of commitment and maturity on everyone’s part to create it.  People often ask in disbelief how our dynamic evolved out of something as painful as a divorce.  I don’t sugarcoat it.  My response is usually something like, “Well, my parents divorced when they realized they had nothing left in common after their girls were grown and gone.  It was awful.  It was horribly painful.  I lost a decade in rebuilding my idea of good and evil.  Years of yearning, blah, blah.  And then POOF!  15 years later, we’re all the best of friends.  If we can do it, anyone can.”

This year’s party was especially fun.  Dad wallpapered my laundry room while Kathy gave some nutritional and lifestyle counseling to my dear friend.  Avery came over for some serious playtime while Kathy helped Ray with an eye injury.  Just to clarify, Kathy is engaged to my Dad and Ray is married to my Mom.  I cooked for 24 hours straight (heaven!!!), and then we ended with wine and games.  Some spent the night, some came back the next day, and the party ended after 30 hours of good times, good times.  There is no word for it when my sister’s family, my family, my two parents and my…other two parents, sit around the dinner table, drinking wine, playing games, and laughing through a delightful evening.  So I’ve come to call us what we are, “The All American Family”.

Postscript: Should anyone reading be an adult child of divorce, I don’t mean to make light of such a painful topic.  I can only laugh in hindsight at my story.  The “blah blah” is a shortened version of “years of anger, followed by years of family counseling, followed by years of healing.”  I was by far, the last to join this kumbaya circle.  Had I not had the help of an excellent family counselor, I’m certain I wouldn’t be where I am today.  Had I sought her counsel earlier (um, like 8 years earlier), I might have saved my 20’s from being The Lost Decade.  Live and learn.  Live and learn.