Average.

My mother was your average strong Italian American woman who instilled into me her Catholic beliefs. As I said we were average, we went to church every Sunday, we would confess our sins when we felt the guilt suddenly strike our guts. We drove a minivan and my father left my mother for his assistant.

My mother then had a slew of boyfriends that she proceeded to parade through my childhood home. When my mother was drowning in men and collecting bricks of resentment toward my father is when we stopped going to Church. See, as I said, just your average American family with normal problems.

When I reached the age where I was moving away from childhood trauma and graduating into adulthood traumas, I moved out and attended a decent four-year University. Afterward, I got a regular job as an insurance agent. A job that I was, at best, mediocre in my performance. A job that also had nothing to do with my college degree. A problem most college graduates have after they make their way across that stage to collect their degree.

I am still convinced that dreams die when you sign that dotted line and agree to an interest rate of 15% on a student loan that just covers one measly semester. And you will say yes and sign again and again every single semester, thinking it will better your life. But in truth, you are giving your life away on the simple promise of spending now and possibly excelling later…after your expensive degree.

My job consisted mostly of sales. And when you have a job selling something. Working almost solely on commission and you are also below average at the selling part. It turns out, you tend to make a mediocre wage. I was not vexed or even remotely perplexed by my average-sized salary.

I lived an ordinary semi-crap life, so I was at peace with my almost middle-of-the-road wage. But when I eventually got married to my long-time girlfriend, that is when my contentment regarding my wage came to a halt. We were trying to live the “American dream,” or at least Melissa wanted the inflated American dream.

The dream that most Americans have, a dream that consists of producing children and moving out of our run-of-the-mill condo and into a home that was far better than ordinary. A home that is also suitable for our future above-average children. My wage, unfortunately, seemed to be a factor that was preventing my wife’s American dream from coming to fruition.

In turn, my wife also started to collect bricks of resentment for me, just as my mother did to my father when I was young.

My “mommy issues” started to bubble to the surface during this time. I proceeded to follow in my father’s footsteps. I took on a lover, of sorts. I, however, was not advanced enough in my career to have an assistant. I settled on our company's young 20-something secretary. As all stories of adultery go, my wife did find the texts between Janet and me. Of course, she left me. Took her invisible house of resentment with her.

Like my mom, who was too resentful to ever forgive my father. My wife, subsequently, never forgave me, and she married a yoga instructor, of all things. But Frank, her new husband, owned many businesses. Thus, his wage was far better than the standard.

Before I died, from what I saw on InnerSociety, they have a house and three very athletic children (two of the children are from Frank’s previous marriage, from what I gather but still.). Which I suppose was for the best. After all, given my exes’ vanity and my protruding waistline and receding hairline, we would have had, at best, cute chubby children who had the pleasure of anticipating hair loss in their mid-twenties. Which, I’m sure, would have been something that Melissa could have used to fuel her unyielding indifference toward me.

Going back to my mother, I grew up moderately religious. After my father left, that was during the same time when it seemed to be going out of style to go to church every Sunday. Attending Sunday Mass was a trend that was dying in our community. My Mother’s friends never questioned why we were not attending Mass anymore because their children were growing older as well. There was no time for Church, we can all praise the Lord before bed every night in the comfort of our own homes. Or at least those are the things we told my mom’s friends, and what my mom’s friends regurgitated back to us.

When we did regularly attend church, we never participated in any anti-gay-rights dogma or any preachings that were remotely bigotry. My mother and her friends, along with all their children attending church was almost like a trend from the 80s that needed to run its course into the 90s. Attending Sunday mass was something our grandparents did with our parents, thus tradition followed me into my childhood. Until, like most trends and traditions, this one died out as well. Sure, we said we were religious. And my mom still posted status updates on InnerSociety about God, but we never attended church regularly again.

Perhaps we were not true believers, I never had the bible drilled into me. I did not, and I still don’t know all the bible stories unless it’s something in the vein of Noah’s Ark. If there was a book that was called the classics of the bible, that is essentially the only holy stories I was taught.

I was a child when we still attended Sunday mass regularly, but it was when my grandfather died that my mom explained to me exactly who God was to her. And of course, what Heaven was, what she believed it to look like, and why Grandpa had to go there after his heart stopped beating.

In my eyes, God was just a friend who kept my grandpa safe in Heaven, who I could speak to only in the form of prayer. I was encouraged to pray every night, but like most, I tended to only pray to God when I was in peril and felt like I was in dire need of divine assistance.

God or Heaven was never something I questioned per se. I blindly believed my mom when she said Heaven was a utopia consisting mostly of clouds, famous dead people, my grandpa, and God. And God was like an old friend whose sole fashion sense consisted of draping white togas, accessorized with a gold belt.

It was only when I started to get a little older, I realized my mom probably took me to church for a few reasons. One: because her mother brought her to church. Two: Her friends went to church and brought their children as well. And Three: so, I can attend religion classes to eventually be able to do the whole confirmation thing. This had two benefits, I would not go to hell. And she could see me get married in my childhood church in front of God, my dead grandpa, and my other dead relatives. Regardless, as an adult, I never questioned my mother’s beliefs and so I thought Heaven was truly a wonderful Utopia of clouds, rainbows, and happiness. I would not say my mother was wrong, but my time here has shown me that, at the very most, Heaven is a nonsensical fever dream. And, at the very least, there are downsides to Heaven.