Blended Families

"Blended families..." Who came up with that pithy term? Not anyone that has tried it, for sure. Blended sounds so calm and cohesive. After all, you blend things together to make them one - you blend two colors to make a new color, you blend ingredients to make a delicious cake or cool summer drink.

Blending a family requires more than just the basic ingredients for most blended recipies. Nuclear families - traditional families - are hard enough. I am not sure what it take to blend a family. Some days, it does indeed feel like a blender has taken over - tossing me around, cutting into each of us, knocking us into each other - but so far, what comes out is not something that looks or feels unified. It feels more like a chopped up mess - ready to be tossed into a salad or some days a hot pan to be tortured some more.

Don't get me wrong, there are moments that the blender takes a break. The times that the attempted blending takes a break and all can settle and even allow the scarred, bruised, blended mess to heal and begin the process of "gelling" before someone comes along and presses that "pulse" button on the blender and stirs it all up again.

Every family has family recipes that get handed down from generation to generation. Grandma's fried chicken; Aunt Betty's coconut cake; mom's apple pie. Recipes are also passed down through our family norms - the way we interact with one another, the way we talk to one another, what is acceptale and what isn't, what and who is valued. Blending families is like throwing all of the recipes in together and hoping the ingredients don't cause a chemical reaction resulting in an explosion.

I suppose the best any of us can do in this world of blending families is to try to learn to respect all of the various components and try not to be the one to push the pulse button on the blender.

 

Someday has come

So it's been awhile since I've posted. And quite honestly, I don't remember much of what's happened since August 7th. It's been a blur of tears and anger and sadness and yes, laughter too.

I ended my last blog with a quote that I posted above my computer. Just a couple of weeks ago, I took down the quote and replaced it. I've come through the worm hole of divorce and moving out and coming out and moving in with. It's been a year!

It hasn't been all bad for sure. I've become stronger, more myself, made new friends, purged old relationships, possibly found a new career path (that is actually an old one...but more on that later.) As Easter approaches (not my fav - see last year), it seems only appropriate that I have let old things die so that new life might be born.


I went to hear Carrie Newcomer this past weekend-check her out at carrienewcomer.com. One of her songs is about letting go...

Leaves don't drop, they just let go,
And make a place for seeds to grow.
Every season brings a change,
A seed is what a tree contains,
To live and die is life's refrain.