Are you married?

"Mom when is your wedding anniversary?", I asked my mother when I was about 10 years old. I was excited for the answer because a friend from school had mentioned her parents were married on Valentine's Day; even at the early age of ten I knew that I also wanted to get married on Valentine's Day. They say every little girl dreams of her wedding day, I don't remember dreaming of my wedding day but I did know that I wanted to be married.

Unfortunately because of TV shows, I believed that one day I would grow up to be June Clever or Mrs. Brady. I wanted the picket fence, the 9 to 5 husband, and four children. I wanted what I was about to lose. "Mom, when is it?" I continued to ask. The response I got not only knocked me off my feet but broke my heart in two. "Mom!" "Look Marisol I don't have an anniversary because I am not married to your dad and I wouldn't want to be married to that SOB." was my mother's answer. I fell flat on my bottom and I didn't move for several minutes. I didn't know how to feel.

The love my mother gave us I know was above anything I could ask for but the need for "The Brady Bunch" family was what I heart yearned for from that day on. As the words came out of my mother's mouth the view of my life, my family changed forever. The saying goes, what you don't know will not hurt you and to a certain extent it is true. I knew my family was far from perfect, my parents fought, my dad drank, and my older sisters did not look like me but that day my mother's bitter words opened my eyes to my true life. I became ashamed of family and ashamed of myself.