Suburban.

And there sits the white picket fence, in its box in the corner of that green room. Its ready to be assembled, its waiting for me. It’s trying to tempt me with the picture on the box, saying all this could be yours. The picture is of a house, a large blue house, with an inviting red door and shutters on all the windows, and the same sprawling white picket fence. It’s a beautiful house, a happy house, a house with no troubles or worries. The family who lives there loves each other.  They are playing with their dog in the grassy front yard. They smile. Real genuine happy smiles. They are content.  This fence is keeping them together. It keeps them safe. It keeps the dog from running away. It keeps unwanted intruders out. It keeps them delighted and blissful.

 

From the outside my house looks similar to the house on the box, it looks like all the other houses in this average suburban town.  It’s large and its blue with an inviting red door, and shutters on the windows and a grassy front lawn. But on the inside it’s run down, pathetic, exhausted and scared.  There is no dog, no family. It’s not a happy house.

 

But the white picket fence has the ability to hide the forlorn character hiding within the walls. No one would know that the inside has no furniture, no light bulbs in the lamps, and no paintings on the walls. That it has an inch of dust covering the dark wooden floors, making it difficult to breath. No one would know about the green room.  They would walk their dogs and children past my house, touch my fence and find it safe to assume that my house is a happy house. 

 

I assembled the fence years ago and it’s too late to take it down.  Without the white picket fence my house would display sadness, and ruin the entire aura of the neighborhood. 

 

So the fence stays.