Vision of a Happy Life A Memoir

I wasn’t greedy then, but I thought I could have it all if I married John. I loved him and I thought I would feel love in return from a man I greatly admired. Although he had taken over the grocery business from his father, John was an enterprising entrepreneur, constantly seeking new business adventures that were as foreign to his father as voting for a Republican president. The world was a wide-open fascinating place to John and he simply imbued that quality in everything he did and everywhere he went. He was joyful and enthusiastic about life and for the first time in a very long time, I felt that way as well during our courtship. Nothing seemed impossible with him.

As our romance matured, I knew that if I married John, I would be able to stay home with my two boys, ending the infinite hours of drudgery as a small-time newspaper editor and the unceasing worry of a single parent. All my life I had wanted to be in the newspaper business and when I actually was hired as the editor of a prestigious small-town newspaper, I soon learned the job was a boring tedium of trying to fill 36 to 42 pages with decent articles. Forget in-depth reporting or news-feature narratives, there was no time because I was a staff of one covering the motion-picture and television community of Toluca Lake.

I also thought that if I married John, I could have a large family again because many of my family, those wonderful Italian aunts and uncles I loved so dearly were dying away, one by one, and I could open my arms and adopt John’s large family. Because John’s home and business were located in a rural area away from Los Angeles my boys would be safe from the tentacles of a city that had lost its soul; and finally, and to be completely precise, I would be financially secure again. No more feeding my sons top ramen for dinner, no more being scared to the depths of my motherhood as I raced to pick up my children at their day care center located 50 miles from my work place, afraid of that extra charge attached to the monthly bill if I were but a minute late.