How did I get Here?

A visit today to the West Village to see the city's Best Paediatric Dentist got me to thinking. We sat in an tiny waiting room filled with children and mothers (although a dad did walk in at the end). The mothers stood far from their children. Only interacting when it seemed unavoidable. The interaction with me was nonexistent. I remember the early days in New York when that would have affected me personally: was I not hip enough, cool enough, rich enough, important enough? Today it made me feel sorry for these women.

In this little room I listened as women spoke loudly and rudely into their mobile phones. As one woman flipped through the pages of Home & Country, she bragged about the renovations to her home; luckily a neighbour was renovating so she could see how the place would look gutted. Another woman yelled out at her sons from the next room as I watched them fight and spit in each other's faces. Then the conversation moved into the actual room. Two families began to compare notes on their respective trips to Disney Land: favourite rides, food they ate. One mom asked a child from the other family, "What did you do in Florida?" "Buy things," he responded.

Listening to these mother's around me made my heart twinge with disappointment. The house wasn't good enough, the trips were not fun enough, the dentist too busy and crowded. These "successful" women were not happy with their lives. Yet here I am, thinking I have climbed out and reached the top of the heap: rubbing shoulders with Manhattan's private school kids; finally getting the dental treatment all children deserve, with the other non-ethnic, upper/middle-class, possession-rich denizens of NYC. And how did I get here?

My dream of a home, was as a place to raise my children: to eat Sunday Dinner with the family, Saturday Breakfast cooked by dad, and Friday Nite Pizza with the neighbours. Now it has become the end all purpose of my life: home-ownership to show it off? to buy things to put in it? to renovate it? to show it off? to say the address, the city, the country..? Just, to buy it. All of a sudden, it all felt so shallow: to have the dream, to realize the dream, if it only means continued dissatisfaction with life.

As we waited for our turn with the dentist I read stories with my children. We laughed over the pictures, discussed the story-line, and saw the message in the words of the authors. Have I become an adult? Can I still hear the tinkling of the bell? Will I ever be invited to Authentic Fairy school? Have I become so grown-up that I cannot see the sheep inside the box, the elephant in the boa? No, "I will keep my eyes on the rising sun and picture a world filled with dreams and imaginationing".