my mom always had enough bowls. that’s what gets me most, you know? i have struggled my entire adult life to find the right balance of bowls for this house.

when i was growing up there were always enough bowls of just the right size for whatever it was we needed. popcorn. cereal. ice cream. soup. just the perfect size for that exact amount. today? i scrounge through the cupboards for fifteen minutes before giving up in frustration and eating cereal from a measuring cup. seriously. it happened.

i have plenty of saucers. and coffee cups. all the forks you’ll ever need. only just — not at the same time. when i’ve got all the forks i need i find i’m suddenly short on saucers. when i have plenty of cups i discover there’s a shortage of spoons. i don’t know what happens to them, but if i weren’t dead inside i would wager a guess that there might be gnomes or little pixies under the floorboards, stealing them away.

the other thing she did was, she never made us feel like it was our fault if we weren’t good at something. i feel like the biggest horse’s ass if i have to look at a drawing or a k’nex creation of the boys’. not because they’re not good. most often they are. but i feel like i’m stumblng and bumbling my way through the praise. in my desire to do it right, it seems to require an effort almost greater than i can muster. but not her. i remember how she just flowed through it like a warm knife through butter. it seemed to come so naturally to her, so easily. so genuinely. and we basked in the glow of her approval.

she made it look so easy.

when i thought about growing up and being a mom and having a house all my own, i thought about being able to stay up as late as i wanted, drinking wine and engaging my peers in intellectual debates. i thought about letting my kids have green hair if they wanted. i thought i would be a hip, cool mom and there would be nothing my own mom could pass along to me that would be of any value.

the thing i didn’t realize is that one day i would struggle with bowl sizes and the paralyzing fear that i might be fucking my kids up for eternity. who knew?