Before I knew

I have been trying to remember what it was like before. Before I was a grown up, before marriage, before children. Before I knew that life was not television, neat and happy. I was certain my childhood was just an anomaly, and the rest of the world lived in Technicolor contentment.

When I grew up, it would be the Cleavers meet The Waltons with a twist of Partridge Family for coolness sake. There would be hors d'oeuvres on white platters bordered in pink flowers, clean linoleum floors smelling of bleach mingled with pine sol. No one would yell. Gone would be the inebriated scenes that left the smell of urine and beer locked in the air, no more waiting,worrying, cautiously testing.

There was a flaw in my perfect life. I had absolutely no idea how to create this panacea of existence. My only guide was countless hours in front of a black and white box, a lesson in frustration as I applied my video education. Appetizers and short, cotton dresses work in the short term, but with the introduction of our own dynasty, rules had disappeared, planning an afterthought. Real children do not have scripts. They do not become the happy adults you imagined,overcompensated with love and whatever money could be supplied is not enough.

Acceptance of this is near impossible. There must be something to fix. There must be something to buy. There must be something to do with this maternal ache.