Staying Home

July 20, 2026

My 12-year-old niece spent a night at my house over the weekend. We had a lot of fun, but life as a 12-year-old is wild. Like, she has a skincare routine. She complained about her eye bags. I was like, Gurl, what eye bags?!

She's basically the complete opposite of me when I was 12. I punctuated the time I spent on Neopets with walks through the cemetery and burnt CDs full of emo songs I downloaded from Kazaa. I definitely didn't put three different products on my face every morning and night. Washing my hair was the best I could manage.

But she's all about boy bands and makeup and fashion. It was fun to reenter that world with her for a while. I could do without the friendship drama, though.

One thing we watched did make me want to launch myself into space. It was an episode of the Netflix show Jordan and Salish Matter.

Holy shit. There was so much shouting. It was the loudest, most chaotic, most asinine thing I've seen in a while. And I've seen the latest Jackass movie. At least that was somewhat entertaining.

After I dropped her off at home on Sunday, I crashed for three hours and then slothed my way through the end of the weekend. I have this week off from work for my annual summertime staycation, so I didn't feel too bad about it.

I've earmarked 40 hours of PTO for this for the past several years. It's something I really look forward to. Travel is great and everything, but have you ever stayed home?

Most years, I spend a couple of days at home and a few days out and about. It's always a nice time, but I always regret not doing more at home. Like, I spend my days at work fantasizing about my own projects. But then I have a staycation and spend half of it not actually at home, not doing said projects.

So this year I'm pretty much just staying home. I'd made plans with other people for some of my days off, but I canceled most of them. It's sort of a bummer. Like, I want to have friends. My friends are fun. I know I should do my best to keep those connections.

But also, I need to be alone. My social energy depletes quickly between going to work and being in a relationship. I'm out of gas almost every day. Being alone, doing my little creative projects, is what helps me recharge.

I haven't been this inattentive since the fourth grade concert where I got in trouble for imitating a teacher playing the harp. At work, I've checked all the way out and am now waiting down the street for an Uber XL with my suitcase full of fucks.

And at home, I can feel myself slipping into ghost mode. My husband has been picking up my slack. I'm not as present as I want to be. This week, I want to return to my corporeal form. And probably do a couple of household chores that have been put off. That's my penance for taking a whole week off to be at home.

Truly, how do people do it all? I wish I had the energy. Most of the time, the thing that gets kicked off the hamster wheel is the thing that would help me the most.

I just want to sit in a sunny room and work on my knitting project. Then I want to bake a cake. Then I want to get out all of my painting supplies and make a mess. Then I want to grab a book, go outside, and not feel like I'm wasting my entire day by reading for an hour, because there's another free day tomorrow, and another after that, and another and another.

I'm just tired of worrying about how long things take. I don't want time to be a problem anymore.