While their divorce settlement mapped out where my brother and I were to be any given day of the year, holidays included, that all got lost as soon as I got a driver’s license.

While Thanksgiving should represent a time when I can enjoy my family and friends and be thankful for all of the incredible people and things in my life, it is a crazy day for me.

Perhaps other children of divorced parents can relate.

My parents got divorced when my brother and I were young, which is something that can be seen as both positive and negative.

It could be considered a good thing since we were relatively young and can’t really remember much. But that same positive can be seen as a negative: I cannot remember a Thanksgiving where I had both of my parents at the same table.

While their divorce settlement mapped out where my brother and I were to be any given day of the year, holidays included, that all got lost as soon as I got a driver’s license.

It has since been expected that my brother and I can, magically, be two places at once because now we are able to transport ourselves. This means that my brother and I barely get to one Thanksgiving dinner before we have to usher ourselves out to another, barely able to bask in our glow before we are out the door.

That isn’t how we want to spend our Thanksgiving. We don’t want to feel like we are letting one side of our family down because we had dinner with the other side first. We don’t want to feel like we are playing favorites or choosing one parent over the other.

But every year, we dutifully try to be two places at once and try to make everyone happy. Except ourselves. But every year, we do it.

When I was younger and the wounds that my parents’ divorce inflicted on me were still fresh, all I wanted was to be able to have a “normal” family. I wanted my parents to live together and I wanted to stop feeling like a ping-pong ball that was being passed from place to place.

But now that I am older, I realize that there is no “normal.” While, yes, the holidays are still difficult because I want to make all sides of my family happy, I realize that I wouldn’t want my family any other way.

OK, there are a few relatives I might change a little, but everyone has those people in his or her family. My family has evolved just as many others into its own, sometimes dysfunctional, way.

All of that time that I spent being angry at my parents after their divorce was such a waste of time. I cannot tell you how lucky I am to have the family that I do.

My parents are incredibly supportive and wonderful, and that never changed when they got divorced. My brother, who weathered the storm of divorce with me, is still my rock. I have a wonderful stepmother who I adore. My little sister is almost 4 and the cutest kid ever.

That is why my brother and I ping-pong ourselves around — we get to see them all and realize that we are lucky and blessed to have the family that we do. We are thankful.

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