For many of you, this isn’t a headline of any earth-shattering import.

But for me, it was a milestone achievement — as it hadn’t happened for me for seventeen years.

I grew up in Houston, Texas (drawl and all, y’all) and on the first day of fifth grade, my parents told us that they were getting a divorce. And as it goes, some breakups are bad. That’s the category my parents’ divorce fell into. We’ll skip the years between then (1983) and 1995. But in 1995, my father gave me away as I walked down the aisle (towards a marriage that would end up much like theirs in short order). But my parents — in the same room for an event of mine for the first time since I graduated high school in 1991.

And that was it. If you’re a child of divorced parents who no longer speak, you know what it’s like to divide your life. Edit your conversations. Be one thing for one person and another for the other. It was the one part of my life that remained divided — until March 11, 2012.

When I got the news that this book would officially launch at SXSWi (South by Southwest Interactive) in Austin, I thought — hey, Mom’s in Houston. Dad’s in Georgetown (about an hour outside Austin). What are the odds they’ll both show up?

Well, they did.

And nothing broke. Exploded. Collided. Spontaneously combusted. Except my heart — because I realized that seeing them in the same place is something that meant the world to me, and I’d been missing it in a world divided for the past 17 years.

My parents? They broke up an unlikable marriage with a decision most unpopular back in the early 1980s (divorce). They each went on to build themselves into brands, if you will, that are loved. By their kids, a spouse, friends, and family. They each had a hand in building three kids who turned out to each live lives they respectively love.

And if you never ever read this damn book, maybe you’ll simply get that unlikable situations can lead to unpopular decisions…which in turn lead to inexplicable joy 17 years later. So this whole unpopular thing? Not so bad. And it goes to show that unlikable and unpopular aren’t the same thing at all.

The most important thing about March 11, 2012 at 10AM wasn’t the incredible people I got to meet at the book launch (even though you’re all awesome and incredibly humbled you passed on free breakfast tacos next door in order to see ME).

It wasn’t that there were a shitload of people waiting in line to have me — some random redhead — sign their book.

It’s the picture you see at the top of this post — the emotional investment in my brand made possible by these two people. My parents.