Okay so I really, really like my family. As in, my parents are cool and incredibly supportive and even if they weren't my parents, I'd totally want to know them. And my siblings are awesome and I would completely be friends with them even if I weren't related to them. So. I am way, way luckier than at least 90 percent of people. Also, we are not assholes. There are some families who love each other and who are really happy to be related to each other but whom everyone else hates, because they belong to some weird religious sect, or they are obsessed with some disgusting hobby like hunting, or they're Republicans. My family, thankfully, is not like that. Pretty much every friend i've ever had has tried to figure out a way to become my parents' adopted child, and i've had more than one ex try to stay friends with my siblings. [Sorry. Not gonna happen. I know they're cool, but they're MINE.]
Still, when you live alone, you forget what its like to be part of a family, like, on a day to day basis. So when I go home for the holidays, I'm always totally excited, and I can't wait to get there, and I load up all my books and craft projects and pajamas and dog, and drive like a demon towards southern Indiana. I love my hometown. Love it. I don't think I'll ever live there permanently again, for a variety of reasons [No jobs. No bead store. Roving bands of white supremacists in the countryside, but I digress]--but I adore visiting.
So why then is it that every single time I go home, after three days, I can't WAIT to get back to my "real life"? It's not my parents. I am that rare person who wishes that my parents lived on the same street as me, so that I could see them every day. I would happily give them a key to my house [if they wanted one, which, um, they don't] and let them come and go at will. It's not their house, because it's amazing. I will never be able to afford a house like theirs, which is actually a good thing since I would set about filling it as I do every living space, with a messy hodge podge of craft supplies, books, and cats, and then end up only using maybe three rooms on a daily basis. It's not the town, although I admit, about 6 days is as long as I can stand to be in a place that has nowhere to obtain craft supplies except joann fabrics and [retch] hobby lobby. I just don't feel that creative when I have to purchase needles and thread while listening to muzak hymns.
I think the reason I get stir crazy after about three days is the fact that when you live alone, you never actually have to tell anyone what you are doing, or, more specifically, WHY you're doing it. Because I find that when I am around other people on a continual basis, they are interested in what I'm doing, what I'm going to do next, what I've already done, and then they want to know WHY. It's not that I'm usually doing something that odd. But I guess when I start narrating my normal day, it can seem kind of strange. Let's try a typical day:
7:20 Alarm goes off. Hit "snooze".
7:22 Listen to dog whine gently
7:23 Feel wracked with guilt at not jumping up immediately and feeding dog, letting her out, and playing fetch with her for 10 minutes before work
7:24 Fall back asleep so soundly that do not hear alarm for fifteen minutes
7:45 Realize it is 7:45 and must leave for work in 30 minutes.
7:45 Realize that really, 30 minutes is plenty of time when you consider I already know what am wearing [everything else dirty or ugly or lost in closet], and already took a shower yesterday, or was that the day before?
7:46 Hit snooze again
8:12 Wake up to dog barking wildly while simultaneously realizing that snooze cannot go off if alarm is already turned off. Three minute to feed dog, dress [myself, not dog], do something to hair, find a whole pair of shoes, and leave house
8:13 Trip over shoes and laundry on way to let dog out; curse; stub toe; curse more; let out dog who leaps directly onto throbbing toe, scream in agony; knock over large tub of dog food and then have to restrain wildly excited dog from eating 20 pounds of food rolling into far corners of kitchen while trying not to let her stomp on mutilated foot yet again
8:15 Throw enormous writhing mess of dog into yard. Realize absolutely no time to pick up 20 pounds of scattered dog food, so pour cup of three day old cold coffee and attempt to drink it while trying to find clothes I was going to wear
8:17 Drip large drop of coffee onto only clean shirt
8:17-8:20 More cursing
8:22 Find dress to wear as means only one piece of clothing to decide on; put on while trying to find shoes to wear with it that don't make me look like insane 80 yr old woman
8:23 Give up and put on Doc Martens. Hope they look "funky" rather than "retarded". Remember sister's insistence that the white sock/black clunky shoe thing is OVER and has been since 1997. Hope that it is at least less over than argyle kneesock/black clunky shoe thing as that is only other option besides black tights, which seem to remember have taken on curious mohair woven effect from amount of dog hair sticking to them
8:25 Go in bathroom and recoil at sight of hair. Stick head under faucet, as only way to tame it is to wet it into submission and then apply copious amounts of product marketed for african americans and labeled "FLAMMABLE: DO NOT SMOKE OR GO NEAR A SOURCE OF HEAT UNTIL HAIR HAS FULLY DRIED"
8:27 Try to get dog back in house. Since it is pouring rain, she will not come in as she loves to be wet only slightly less than being completely covered in mud. Is currently both, and only way to get her in is to go outside into the rain, and chase her until she turns and chases me, and then must make clever, weaving maneuver so that dog does not catch me but instead runs into house. This does not always work the first time. Today it takes three tries and while dog does go into house finally, it is not without first leaving two large muddy pawprints on skirt of dress. Which is also soaking wet.
8:29 Curse
8:30 Enter house to find dog nowhere in sight
8:31 Go back to bedroom to find absolute worst backup outfit only worn in cases of extreme emergency such as no clean clothes and dirty pawprints.
8:32 Find dog happily ensconced on bed, dripping rivulets of muddy water onto pillows, expensive down comforter, and [DAMMIT] library book.
8:33 Since dress is already ruined, haul dog physically back to crate, shove her in, and lock it
8:35 Officially should have been at work 5 minutes ago. Still have to find horrible back up outfit.
See, that's only one very small part of a perfectly normal day. And writing it down proves to me that not only should anyone never have to hear about it, but no one should ever, EVER have to see it. Because in person it's just that much worse.
Oh well. At least I'm home now, where I can be quietly, completely crazy all I want. Well, quietly except for the cursing.
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