Sans the home alone

TIMMI TOLER
August 31, 2007 - 12:19AM
DAILY NEWS STAFF
Months ago, using stealth-like planning and quiet calculation, I arranged to take a vacation this week. I told no one (except my boss for obvious reasons). I didn’t make any plans. And most importantly, I spoke not of it to those in my dwelling.

My only plan was to stay home. For a whole week. With the house all to myself - at least during the day until my people came home from work and school.

I love being home alone. It’s my favorite way to relax.

Being in your own space, with all your favorite stuff and no one around, is simply a delicious way to unwind and refresh. I try to get a week like this once a year with lots of empty hours to burn however I choose. I can spend a day on the beach. Spend a day reading. Spend a day writing. Spend a day crafting - what my family likes to call “Really Bad Things Mom Does With A Hot Glue Gun.”

I can spend an entire day watching movies that only I like. These are movies that no one else in my house, or anyone else’s house for that matter, would ever want to watch because they’re either so bad they kill brain cells (see “Grease 2″) or so girly they give you an overwhelming desire for hot tea, rose gardens and empire-waist dresses (see “Sense and Sensibility”).

Home vacations are the best, and I was really looking forward to mine. And then, the week before my secret vacation, Mr. X mentioned he was taking a week’s vacation. His boss pretty much made him because he never takes a vacation so they all pile up and he has to use them before the year is over. His week just happened to fall the same week as mine. Of course, he had no idea that I was taking one.

I fully confess I was bummed.

Not because I don’t love my ex-husband-soon-to-be-next-husband (we’re engaged, in case I didn’t mentioned that) with all my heart. Not because I don’t love spending time with him. Not because he isn’t adorable and kind.

But his idea of a home vacation is vastly different from mine. He relaxes by ripping up the floor in the den and putting in a new one. He refreshes by painting the living room. He unwinds by cutting the grass, digging in the dirt and installing a new faucet in the bathroom.

His vacation activities are a lot like work and are direct contrasts to my activities of intense couch-sitting and nap-taking. I simply cannot enjoy being an unmotivated slug skulking around the house in my nightgown when he’s cleaning windows and squirting WD-40 on door jams.

It’s productive and, therefore, annoying.

I’ve tried to explain my home alone vacation to him, but he does not seem to get it. My need to be alone isn’t because I don’t care about him or my girls, it’s precisely because I do care that I need time to disconnect - otherwise my hypersensitive, overbearing, critical, nit-picky side might lose some of its charm because it will consume me 24 hours a day, versus the 20 hours it inhabits now.

I explained all of this to my friend (therapist) because I wanted to see if this need to be alone was normal. She said the need to retreat is very normal, especially for moms, because we’re so wired to our family’s needs. We’re plugged into their well-being - and their being well - constantly.

Moms know who’s hungry, sick, scared, disappointed, angry and anxious. We know when to get whom to the dentist, practice and school. We know who needs new shoes, an old friend, a sweet hug and a big honking batch of chocolate chip cookies.

We just know. All the time - 24-hours a day, we’re tuned in.

Dads know stuff too, but their wiring has more to do with who needs an oil change or help with their curve ball.

So all week it has been a blend of Mr. X’s vacation and mine. He has remodeled the den, I have watched three movies, ordered Chinese and shopped online. He got the oil changed in his car. I spent hours playing with our new kitten.

In the evenings, we spend time together. We sit on the front porch in our rocking chairs, sipping cool drinks and appreciating just how darn lucky we are to have vacations and a home to spend them in.

And to have each other.

Timmi Toler is a staff writer at The Daily News who never knew the versatile uses of WD-40 until she took a vacation. Contact her at ttoler@freedomenc.com, 353-1171, ext. 8458 or get bloggy at timmitoler.com.