leaving the house.

way back when, i was out and about all the time.  i would head down to book people and curl up in a chair and read there.  i would duck in and out of boutiques, music stores, grocers.  i would languish for hours at friends' houses, in cafes, at random restaurants.  when i started grad school, i became a bit more homebodied.  homebodied?  sure.  being at work all day and then at class until 9:30 two nights a week, i started to relish my time in our house.  this also roughly coincided with us owning a house, so that may have something to do with it too.  in any case, i kept it closer to the casa, but i could still pry myself away for a happy hour or yoga class or dinner with friends.

since having emme, i feel like i have crawled into my little hermit shell with my young and i am not budging.  in addition to wanting to keep it closer to home for the bunny, i am a control freak (shocker, i know).  i feel like tying myself to the house gives me some small sense of dominion over the deluge of chores that i face daily.  i live in a mountain of laundry (i can't decide if i hate clean or dirty laundry more...), i wash bottles incessantly, i attend to the living creatures that cohabitate with us, all of whom have needs (alas, the joy of pethood, motherhood, wifehood).  despite knowing that our house will never stay clean, that there is no place to put things to feel more organized, that i will never have time to read all the books/do all the crafts i want, i feel like being there at least puts those pipe dreams into the realm of the possible....  home is my safe nest, regardless of any accompanying frustrations.  i feel the possibility of control there.

last night, though, i was coerced out of my abode to meet some girlfriends for a  chick flick.  i'd read the book and i'm a sucker for a cheesy romcom (hate that term).  the movie was fun and seeing the girls was lovely, despite not having too much of a chance to visit.  and somehow, when i got home, it was the sweetest place i have ever been.  i was happy to be loading the dishwasher at 10:13 and hauling clean diapers out of the dryer at 10:46.  it was such a little thing to do, leaving the house.  relinquishing that control over my fiefdom for just a minute.  i was gone for not a full three hours.  but it gave me brand new eyes coming back.  i will have to consider doing this more often.


*note: i re-posted this because of the blogger mishap yesterday.  boo for blogger!