Guilty Pleasures

I dropped Husband off at the airport at the crack of dawn this morning–he’ll be gone until Wed mid-day. And while I’ll miss him, there is something nice about occasionally having 100% of your personal time reserved for, well, Me. Let the dinner dishes soak overnight in the sink--no problem. Watch an old sappy chick-flick on TV instead of changing the air conditioning filters--why not? Curl up with the newspaper in the Living Room without someone calling out, “WHERE ARE YOU, AND WHY ARE YOU IN THERE?”--of course!

Why is it so hard to carve out Me time? Are we any busier than we were when we were teenagers and burning the candle at both ends so we didn’t miss a thing? Everything then was all about doing what we wanted to do, even when it wasn’t popular with the parents. Somewhere along the line, we started toeing the line more, paying attention to duty and responsibilities, until we got to the point where Me time was a guilty pleasure. Spouses, babies (not always in that order) and aging parents each vie for “just a few minutes”. And there’s the never ending maintenance call that comes with owning a house or an auto (why is it a leak in the house is always followed by a leak in your car, or vice-versa?). I love that my adult children still want to spend time with me and ask for my opinion, but I just sat down–do you really need me to come with you to pick out an earpiece for your cell phone?

So you’d think that when I finally have the chance to recapture some Me time, I’d do something grand and worthy like re-reading "Atlas Shrugged" while sipping a chocolate martini, or spending all day receiving spa treatments. Um, yeah . . .that’s what I should have done. But here’s what I did do. I frittered the day away. I couldn’t tell you about a single significant thing that I did today. Except to tell you that I’m soooooooooo relaxed.