Growing up

I thought I was normal until I became a mother.

Mothers are supposed to be adults, grown-ups, people who really know. And knowing that I didn't know I reached back into the archives of my childhood for those instructions the world seemed to believe were there.

And they were, as much as they ever are, but the irony of life is that we don't fully understand each part until it is over.

Glorifying my childhood the way I had been taught to do, I then echoed some of my parents' mistakes, magnified others and condemned some more harshly than was necessary.

In between I fumbled along with infinite love and undying good intentions doing the best I could.

Believing my husband was doing the same I didn't realize he had no interest in doing anything differently than his parents and they were the age of my grandparents.

It was like rubbing two pieces of corrugated cardboard together and hoping the ride wouldn't be bumpy. Except that these two were made out of different stock and neither understood that they couldn't even communicate.

My survival skills were learned at my parents' knees and they were fairly primitive in many respects. My children's were learned in the midst of the chaos we called family, were finely honed and are now being translated by them into the memories their children will have.

The only consolation I have is that the love was, and is, real and love is powerful magic.