A Simple Dream

To the Fates,

Don't take this as anything more than a dream. This is only a hope -- not a plan. So much could happen between the future and the now. The future can worry about itself, and I have enough trouble with the now as it is. However, I can still dream and I will dream until it hopefully becomes a reality.

This is my dream.

On a street, in the city, suburb or country, there's a house (ranch or multilevel, take your pick). Not a cream, white, grey, or brown house, but one with an actual color. Even if a light color, a color nonetheless. This house has character, more so than others at the very least. There's a nice lawn and a backyard with a jungle gym that children ask to play in. Toys may litter the yard during midday, but they'll be cleaned up by dinner. Chalk drawings will fill the driveway, sidewalk, and cement porch. Some of them will wash away with rain and others with time. The garage is existent, but unimportant. The most that I can imagine about it is that it has enough in it. Enough cars, sports equipment, tools... doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is that it has enough.

The door opens into the house and there is an entrance littered with shoes and coats and bags and anything else that is shed there, but not playthings.  Those are everywhere else. Everywhere else but there and the kitchen. The kitchen is unimportant. It has what is necessary to make a breakfast, lunch, and dinner -- not many TV dinners here. What matters about the kitchen is that the food is good to the family and that the fridge has pictures and drawings stuck to it.

There's a dining room or it's part of the kitchen, it doesn't matter either. The only mentionable thing is the table. It's a large table that is too big for the family, but can easily accommodate guests.

The bathroom doesn't matter either.

The living room matters, though. It is spacious and full. It has blankets and toys in cupboards and dolls and tiny cars scattered about the floor until they are cleaned up by the children and parents. It has a television like any other home and a sofa set that is comfortable. But the importance that lies in the living room is that it's used. It is where the family is most of the time they are at home. This is where they spend Wednesday nights playing games. This is where the children talk constantly until their parents get annoyed and tell them to quiet down. This is where the two children then color pictures with crayons splayed out across the floor. This is where the children, feeling suddenly bored as children do, go nuts and jump around on furniture until their parents lose their temper and send them to their bedrooms. This is where, as the children grow, they'll bring their friends and more-than-friends to play video games and relax. This is where the important things happen.

Back to the bedrooms. This is really important, too. Maybe even the most important. The bedrooms will be full of the one who sleeps there. The walls covered in pictures, posters, drawings, or anything else that they want in there. It will seem messy because the floor have so much of their things. Shelves and drawers of possessions. Dresser tops and end tables cluttered with things. The bed won't be a bed set, but a hodgepodge of blankets and things that they like -- their favorite color pillows and a random novelty blanket with cool- or cute-looking sheets. As nice as their room is, they won't spend much time in there.

There won't be a guest bedroom under any circumstances. Why would there be? A sleepover isn't a sleepover without sleeping bags. Also, it would have less importance than a bathroom. It could not have character, or it would be overwhelming to the guests. It would have to be a plain room as well, so it shouldn't exist.

There is storage somewhere in this house. There out-of-season decorations lie. Boxes with old clothes and favorite toys that will not be discarded. Memories are hidden here, but open for anyone to see. Albums of pictures are somewhere around here, too. Everything in here had meaning, but does not now. It will one day,though.

The family is happy and takes this lovely house for granted, like any other happy family would, I think. The two children are busy living what they call their life, whether is is play, daycare, or school, and the parents have their job. The mother has her job that she was, upon getting it, shocked that she had made it so far. However, part of her wishes she could spend the day home. She is a caring mother that is proud of their children and who they are and what they have done. She is excited to see who they will be, but appreciates how old they are now. She will be involved in their lives when they are young, going on school trips with them and helping them have sleepovers when she isn't working. The father has a job that he too is happy with. Even if he isn't, though, he has his house he can come back to that he is happy with. He cares about the children, too, and loves them a lot. This love, he does not need to show through gifts or trips, but by simply being there. He may be strong, but strength in the physical sense is unimportant. What's important is that he is truly strong. He would give anything for his children and their happiness. Both of the parents would do anything to support each other and their family.

The children will grow up and leave the home, the parents will become lonely. They will not have another child, though. Where would the new child stay? They wouldn't stay in the other bedrooms. Those are to be preserved until the older children have their own place to stay permanently in case they come back and need the comforts of their old life of play, daycare or school. When they need the boxes of old clothes and favorite toys that were never discarded, they will be there. If they miss their mismatch blankets and room full of them, they can return. The living room will be waiting, maybe a bit changed, but still the same room where they laid on the ground, surrounded by crayons and coloring pictures that were then displayed on the fridge for the world to see. They can have a home-cooked meal while they are there, too. As they are leaving, they will look at the lawn, remembering how it was littered with their toys and suddenly, they won't take the house for granted.

The parents, though, will continue to do so until they are old and grey. When they are no longer able to stay in the house, they will be moved away to one of their child's houses where they have their own family. They will remember how they once were and see it in their children. Him, being strong, but maybe not physically, and her, being involved, maybe not as much as she'd like to be. Both being loving and proud of their children. Keeping who they were, but accepting who they're becoming. Letting their children be who they want to be, but stopping them before they get out of line. Showing who they are and how their family runs in and outside of the house -- together. Working to make the house that both the parents and children take for granted become more than it was when they first started, more than a house with colored walls, even more than a house with character. Though neither the parents nor the children realize it, they were working for years upon years to make it a home.