My parents recently went away to South Africa, leaving me the house to myself for three weeks. I’m not entirely sure whether to feel bad for enjoying the weeks so much and wishing they weren’t over so soon. It was amazing- I was able to just be without feeling like someone was constantly looking at my actions and my appearance and my words and trying to find something wrong. I could live on my own schedule, I could eat what I want, I could not wear headphones all the time and turn the volume up and even sing along if I wanted to, I could take extra long showers and walk around in as little or as much clothing as I wanted. I took over my parents bedroom so I had a double bed all to myself. It was bliss curling up in that big bed and reading by the faint light of the lamp on the night stand until 3am, or getting the laptop out and watching a movie curled up in bed until similar hours in the morning. I could then sleep in until whenever, waking up slowly, the house silent all around me, still and calm. I had my cat of course and I admit I was worried about taking care of her but I managed and she was good company. It was probably a little bad that I took to attempting conversation with my cat but oh well. My cat took to curling up at me feet, or on my stomach, as I lay in bed, waking me up in the morning by walking over me, following me around and watching as I ate. Cats are relatively easy company. They can be demanding but mainly they keep to themselves. It was a quiet time, peaceful and relaxing. I felt happy…and not at all lonely. The worse thing that happened was our central heating running out of oil and having to live in the cold, cold house for 10 days. Taking full responsibility of the chores wasn’t too bad. Cooking for myself was disastrous but I could live on an awesome diet of Doritos, sandwiches and various tinned food so its not like I starved. I just ate like whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted cos there was no one to tell my otherwise and I liked that even if my body probably hated me for it.
Now its over and everything is back to how it was as if those weeks had never happened. Sure there are the good parts, the civil conversation, the compliments and the “I missed you”-s, the having my meals cooked for me again (and my mom made me my favourite- macoroni cheese- tonight), the presents brought back from SA. But there’s the bad parts too: the nagging, the critiscm, my mother trying to fight with me, having to listen to my mother and father arguing once more. My sister comes home tommorow then there will be all 4 of us pissing each other off. It’s noisy again, its difficult again—
—and again I feel like I’m drowning.