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I didn't exactly dream of one day becoming a second wife. And while my preteen diary was filled with entries addressed to the daughter I just knew I was destined to have, letters to my future stepdaughters are nowhere to be found.
I certainly didn't realize as I was planning Barbie and Ken's wedding in my best friend's playhouse that my future husband would be already married and heading up a television news department in Savannah. That's a little too creepy for me to think much about even now.
But in my time spent first as a daughter, then as a stepdaughter, then wife, stepmother and finally mom, I've learned that love can be complicated. Just when you think you've got it all figured out, things get weird. And for me, things got weird when I fell in love with a 40-year-old father of two. As for those dreams of being some lucky man's first and only bride, of handing him his firstborn child, of co-signing the mortgage on his first house, well, all of that disappeared the moment I said "I do" back in 2002.
But the way I see it, I got something far, far better.
Because I didn't just marry a man; I married a family. I formed a union with three people on my wedding day and, for better or for worse, we're linked forever. And my life is far better for having all of them in it.
Of course, it hasn't been easy. We've gone from having custody of the girls two days a week to having them 24-7. They've become teenagers. We've added two more children to the mix and trying to make ends meet with four kids and one income makes our bank book read like someone's sick idea of a joke.
But we have love. And we have laughter. And you need a lot of both if you want to survive in a blended family.
If I've learned anything it's this- Despite all the grand plans you make for yourself and your family... in the end, all you can do is run with it.
