Alone Time

I live at home with my parents and my brother, AJ. I don’t feel bad about this because I’m only 21, and also because I’m a girl, which is way less weird than being a guy and still living with your parents in your twenties (which I know is a crazy and ridiculous double standard, but hey, if society wants throw us that one bone, I’ll take it). Besides that, I really love living at home. I have one of those great families that everyone wants but few people actually have. They’re funny and smart and just all around fantastic, and more importantly, they’re the perfect family for me. I’m 100%, completely blessed to be able to call them my own, and that’s a fact that I’m acutely aware of every day. I’m just incredibly lucky to have them.

Still, something happens when you spend large amounts of time with people, any people, regardless of how you really feel about them. Little things start to annoy you. Dishes that pile up in the sink, mail addressed to you that you never see, a total and complete lack of control of the remote – those kinds of things. And no matter how great people are, sometimes those annoyances build up to the point where you just need a break, lest you become murderous over an unflushed toilet or innumerable pairs of shoes left lying around. Lucky for me (and for them), I got that break last weekend when my parents had to chaperone my brother (who is an excellent high school third baseman) during an out-of-town baseball tournament, leaving me home alone for an entire three days.

There are only a handful of things I truly relish in life, and alone time is most definitely one of them. That’s what was so great about them going to the tournament. I would be alone. Just me. By myself. For three days. Three days! The prospect of even one day all to myself thoroughly excites me, so you can imagine how jazzed I was about having all that time just for me. Alone time is always nothing short of a beautiful thing.

My family left early Saturday morning, and from then on the perks set in. The first thing I did was sleep in. I wasn’t even all that tired, but the quiet house, the warm bed, and the knowledge that I didn’t have to do anything for anyone else but me that day made it easy to enjoy a little extra snooze time. Like, four hours of extra zzz’s, to be exact. I know that seems both ridiculously extravagant and strangely decadent, but when you’re sleeping that deeply and comfortably, stuff like that fails to register on your concern-o-meter, especially when the parameters of said meter have shifted from “Is this activity acceptable and/or healthy?” to “Is there any way I could make this activity more pleasant for myself?” Actually, scratch that. A better way of putting it would be to say that my concern-o-meter had morphed itself into a pleasure-o-meter, and that sleeping in was right up there towards the top on the new scale.

Once I woke up, I did something I wouldn’t normally do: I stayed in my pajamas. When my family is home, there are always a million and a half things to do, and as there is so little time to get all that stuff done during the weekend, we have to hit the ground running, which means no elongated pajama wearing. But I didn’t have anything scheduled for myself till later in the day, so I stayed in my pajamas. I put on my robe and made myself breakfast (on a tray, with milk AND orange juice, just because I could), and watched ten episodes of “Barefoot Contessa” that had backlogged on my Tivo. My alone weekend was off to a really great start.

Once I peeled myself off the couch (no easy task), I started to get ready for a late lunch with my favorite cousins, Denise and Stacie, and their mom, my Aunt Dee. These are three of my absolute most favorite people on the planet. Denise and Stacie are like my super fun older sisters, and my aunt is so sweet that you just want to stuff her like a doll and carry her around with you wherever you go. I never have a bad time when I’m with them. They make me feel like I’m the coolest, most dazzling and interesting person in the entire world, and that’s not a terrible feeling to have. They know the best places to go, the conversation is unfailingly excellent, and I always leap at the chance to spend time with them. This time, we went to lunch at a great little creperie (their find, natch), and, as expected, it was awesome. What made it even more awesome was knowing that I didn’t have my family to hurry back to. I could linger at lunch as long as I wanted to because no one was waiting for me at home. I can’t describe how nice that felt, knowing that my time was my own. I really liked it.

I spent the rest of my weekend engaging in similarly self-indulgent activities. I was starting to look like Peter Gallagher and Brooke Shields’ love child, so I got my eyebrows waxed. I took an insanely long shower. I read (this insane book about the Skull and Bones group - it terrifies me and I like it), listened to music (Joe Purdy’s “Paris in the Morning” – get on it), and had a Jim Halpert swoon fest while watching seasons 1 and 2 of “The Office” on DVD. You know when you get so relaxed that you’re basically dopey and have a total inability to function on a normal level? I was about two ticks away from being right there. I was probably as close to that point as a person as tightly wound as I am can ever possibly be. It was glorious.

Still, I was happy when my family came home. I missed them like you miss your bed when you’re in a hotel. I mean, a bed is a bed, but there’s no bed that will ever feel as right to you as your own bed does. And it was the same way with my family. The house was nice without them, and even though I was blissed out to the max on an alone time high in their absence, it felt good to have them back at home with me again. It felt right. Then again, it always feels right till the dishes take on new and impressive architectural heights and the mail gets lost in some sort of bizarro suburban Bermuda Triangle situation. When those things happen (and they will), I feel pretty certain that I’ll be marking the days off on the calender until they have an out-of-town thing again. I'll let you know when that countdown begins...