Blended

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Are you an Adam Sandler fan? We are all fans here in our house. One year for Christmas, [my late husband] Tim got me every Adam Sandler movie he had made so far. I love most of his stuff, but I don’t really ever buy videos because I keep things simple when I can. I appreciated the thoughtful gesture, though.

My favorite duo is Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore. I really like “The Wedding Singer” and I absolutely love “50 First Dates.” It is one of my all time favorites and one of the few movies I have watched repeatedly and never get tired of.

I discovered the pair of actors have a new movie out called “Blended,” so we went to see it this week. Man, I am such a drama queen. Most people watch movies and relate to parts of it, and get the nuances of what is being conveyed. Me? Well, I lived every second of the movie completely immersed in the characters from the first moment until the last.

Drew’s character (Lauren) is a divorced, single mom with two boys. Dad is creepy and not involved. The boys are a handful and we see several scenes of her struggles to just barely keep up with the pressures every day, much less have the energy or wisdom with how to actually help her kids solve their issues. The funniest parts are every time she tries to carry her son to bed after he falls to sleep. He is too big and she is clearly not strong enough. She constantly bumps into walls with him and you have to wonder if half of the kid’s problems are due to traumatic brain injury… lol.

Adam’s character (Jim) is a single dad with three girls. Guess what? His wife died of cancer. He’s a great dad, but oblivious to the feminine needs of his girls. One of them is having particular grief issues and we get to see scenes of him looking helplessly at his daughters, knowing he has no idea how to really help them.

It is laced with humor, but I was just sick to my stomach watching. I got it. And it’s so, so, so horrible to be a single parent sometimes and feel so terribly inadequate. Even though they were overall great parents, their kids were still suffering. And when your kids suffer, you suffer.

Lauren and Jim meet and hate each other. Then through a series of odd, quirky events, they consistently keep bumping into each other. And you know how things like this happen in real life- they somehow end up in Africa together at some week-long retreat for helping blended families adjust to their lives together. Completely ridiculous, but the story works. I completely related to the blended family piece too. Our family had super-sized struggles when Tim and I first got together. It took YEARS for things to get better.

One scene I just broke down and sobbed. (Thank goodness my son Frankie and his friend sat a few seats down. I would have never heard the end of it.) It was a scene about grief and healing where Lauren does something for the girls their mother used to do for them. Jim heard it from behind the door. The look on all of their faces was so moving. I got it.

In the end (of course), they realize they are madly in love. I don’t care if it was unrealistic or not. I cheered them on every inch of the way. Jim’s daughters so desperately needed a mom. Lauren’s sons so desperately needed a father. And suddenly, they fit. They just fit.

It put me in a funk the rest of the day. I loved it and love when I get moved like that. But there was an underlying sadness that I can’t deny. I know that I need that “fit.” I know I can’t settle for less than that. Not perfection, but that understanding that happens when a man not only loves me (which is hard enough), but also gets that my son desperately needs a father (in spite of how much he appears not to). It’s a beautiful concept but it just hasn’t happened yet.

The sad part is the flashback to the scenes where you watch the struggling single parents. Living life while you are waiting for something that may or may not happen, is difficult. I know several of you who read this blog are single parents and seem to handle it much more gracefully than I do. My hat is off to you. I will keep trying to do my best. That’s all I can do. I know I’m a decent mom and doing a decent job. But I have the “carrying my son who is too heavy for me and I keep banging his head on the wall in the meantime” problem that I just keep pushing through. In the movie, Jim suggested Lauren get her son a helmet.

I hope I didn’t ruin the movie for you. You should watch it and let me know what you think. In the meantime, I guess I will keep doing my best and go helmet shopping!

Darcy Thiel, MA is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor in NY State. She earned her Master’s Degree in Clinical Psychology from Wheaton College in Wheaton, IL. Ms. Thiel has been a couple and family therapist in West Seneca, NY since the mid-1990’s. In addition, she owns a business helping people de-clutter their homes and offices. Ms. Thiel also owns Baby Coop Publishing LLC and is excited to be releasing her first book, Bitter and Sweet, A Family’s Journey with Cancer. Find it here: www.babycooppublishing.com.