I don’t know if this counts as a confession exactly I mean it’s not something I did wrong it’s more like a memory a particular kind of memory that still sort of… aches I guess you could say it’s been decades now since that time and I’m 76 now and sometimes in the quiet of the night I think about it a lot about that little laundry room I was a stay-at-home father then a rather unusual thing back then for an artist a painter really not really a family man type or so I thought or so I was TOLD I was and the children were tiny two toddlers just a year apart demanding you know always demanding always needing something it felt like a constant depletion sometimes like a slow draining you know of your very essence of your creative wellspring and money was always tight always a looming shadow over everything my wife bless her heart she worked so hard but it was never quite enough for my fancy art supplies or for even just a moment of quiet to THINK you know to really get into the flow of something beautiful something lasting I’d sometimes sneak into the garage just to sketch for ten minutes before someone would cry or call for me so one afternoon I remember it vividly the sun was slanting in a peculiar way through the living room window a bit hazy I think and the cartoons were on some brightly colored cacophony of sound and light and the children were absolutely transfixed for once truly and utterly silent which was a rare and precious thing a momentary reprieve you know from the endless needs and I found myself almost automatically drawn to the kitchen I guess I was just looking for something anything to just put in my mouth something that wasn’t another half-eaten crust or a cold cup of tea and there it was a box of Captain Crunch almost empty a leftover from a rare grocery store splurge you know for the children’s sake of course but mostly for the SUGAR and I poured it into a bowl just a small bowl and then I poured the milk over it and the sound the little CRINKLE of the cereal the slosh of the milk it was almost like a secret sound just for me and then I did something I never did I didn’t eat it there in the kitchen or at the table I didn’t want to share I didn’t want to be asked for a bite I didn’t want to explain why I was eating sugary cereal in the middle of the afternoon so I retreated to the laundry room a small cramped space full of lint and the faint smell of detergent and a pile of clean but unfolded clothes waiting patiently to be put away and I sat on the cold concrete floor with my back against the washing machine and I ate that bowl of cereal slowly methodically each spoonful a small act of defiance almost each crunch a tiny rebellion against the relentless demands of parenthood of poverty of feeling so utterly irrelevant to anything but changing diapers the sweetness of it was almost overwhelming a burst of artificial fruit and sugar it was almost sickeningly sweet but it was also profoundly comforting it was a moment just for me a stolen moment of self-indulgence a brief escape from the constant pressure the constant noise the constant giving and I just sat there in the quiet humming of the pipes and the faint whir of the refrigerator from the kitchen just beyond the door and I let the sugar rush sort of wash over me a little wave of warmth a little bit of peace I don’t know if it was a cry for help or just a moment of extreme depletion you know like a sort of emotional hypoglycemic episode but I remember feeling a strange mix of shame and utter bliss at the same time a kind of bittersweet relief I guess almost like a moment of self-soothing in a very primitive way and I finished the bowl and I just sat there for a few more minutes letting the quiet sort of seep into my bones before I went back out to the bright noise of the living room and the children and the never-ending needs and sometimes now I still think about that laundry room and that bowl of cereal and I wonder if that was the first crack you know in the dam of what I thought my life was supposed to be the moment when the artist in me the passionate creative soul realized that maybe you couldn’t always paint your way out of everything that sometimes you just needed a quiet corner and a bowl of sugary cereal to survive. it’s not really a secret anymore I mean who would care about an old man’s memory of cereal but it feels like it still holds a sort of weight a sort of emotional resonance all these years later it’s like a little marker of a time when I was almost… lost I think maybe.