My Modern Family

True confession time... One of my favorite TV shows is Hot in Cleveland. Unless you know me well, that seems like a stupid thing to confess, but as a follower of Christ, I believe that God designed sex for married people. With that being said, as an adult, the only way I know how to keep my mind and therefore my thoughts and actions pure, is to be very careful about what I watch. I generally try to stick to a PG or PG-13 rating. The exceptions I make are for the action packed sagas I love so much, but even with them I try and be careful about what images go into my mind. I know not everyone needs to have the parameters in place, but for me it's important.

All that being said, I didn't think I would like Hot in Cleveland because I knew it would have some crude humor, so I didn't watch it... at first. Then one night with friends, I saw the season 1 finale and was hooked. And even when the ladies get a bit crass, as a single 35 year old, I can relate to a lot of their predicaments when it comes to life and dating. The show is about 3 women from Los Angeles who end up stuck in Cleveland, Ohio on their way to Paris. After years of living in the surgically manipulated Los Angeles culture and feeling old and unattractive, they find themselves in a place where where people are just people and realize they are hot in Cleveland. So they all pack up and move into a big house in Cleveland where Betty White ends up staying in their guest house. The other day I was watching it and there was an episode where they talked about how even though it's odd that 3 grown women live in a house together, they're happy. They are each other's family. That got me thinking about the people I love and who I call family. Even as I type this, I am sitting at a kitchen table of a complete stranger, who happens to be like a second mother to my best friend. So she is really not a stranger at all, but rather more like extended family. It is 2am and we are picking music that will be played before my best friend's father's funeral during the slideshow. It has been a rough couple of months with her dad's health and the call came Tuesday at 3:30am that he had gone to be with Jesus. And much like the fictional friendship and sisterhood of the women on Hot In Cleveland, my best friend is like a sister to me. She is my family. Last week I wrote about how my I kept singing a song over and over again, but it wasn't till I stopped and set my gaze towards heaven that I realized that song was resonating something deep in my heart that my mind hadn't acknowledged yet. This week it has hit me the reason I am drawn to this particular sitcom isn't just because of it's humor, but because I can relate to the women in it.

Each of them find themselves in a place in life they didn't expect: one recently divorced, one divorced 5 times and one who laments she never married. Each of these women thought their life would look different that it does. They dreamed their story would be written differently. I can relate to this. It's not that I lament how my life has gone, I am so thankful I've been able to travel and experience what I have, but the fact remains as a little girl, I never dreamed I would still be without a family at this stage in life. But then again, I'm not without family, at all. Like the women in the show, I am very close with my best friend and love her 4 year old son like he were my own. Through not traditional, they are my family. I'm not saying this to buck tradtional families. In fact, today is my grandparents' 74th anniversary. They are that cute couple who whenever they walk into a restaurant all eyes turn to them and people can't help but smile and let out a little sigh because most people dream to one day be in my grandparents shoes: in their 90's with someone to hold their hand. My other grandparents were married 73 years before my grandpa passed away several years ago. And while I still hope that my story will end like my grandparents and I will one day be half of that cute couple who, no matter what room we walk into, cause people to smile and hope they too will be so blessed to live a long and happy life, I'm not guaranteed that. I don't know how The Creator will write my story in the future, but I am aware of how He's chosen to pen my present one. I am blessed to have parents and a brother who I love and am thankful for. I am blessed to have a best friend and "nephew" I love as if we were kin. Even the amazing family who invited me to be a part of their lives by building me a little studio in their basement is like family. I get to help them with some cooking and cleaning and in return they help me with a wonderful roof over my head. My life at 35 is far from what Danee at 15 had imagined, and I suspect it is the same for most people. But I am aware that in my wildest dreams I never could have concocted the steps that got me here, both good and bad, and am so thankful to be surrounded by my modern family.