Out of People for the Day

You come home from a weekend full of people you love and feel like you’ve been run over. Nothing went wrong. Everybody was lovely. And you’d pay money for a room with nobody in it.

Being around people takes something out of you, even the good ones you’d drive across town for, and you feel it the day after. Maybe you’ve felt it for years and just called it a bad mood.

What the couch is for

It looks like this. The blanket, a bowl of cereal for dinner, the TV on something you’ve seen twelve times, and a strong opinion that nobody should need anything before Monday. Somewhere in our twenties, that got a bad name. It didn’t deserve it.

After a stretch of people, even people we love, the couch is where we get it back. Needing a day to ourselves after four days of everybody else is not a flaw. It is a need, the same as sleep.

The guilt that comes with it

So what stops you? Not permission. Guilt, the kind that shows up about forty minutes into the couch, with a list. The thank-you text you haven’t sent. Your mother. The friend who sounded off. Guilt can make resting feel like you’re letting somebody down.

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You’re not. Nobody is losing anything because you answered at eight tomorrow instead of nine tonight. The guilt comes from a lot of years of being the one who always answers, and it fires on schedule whether or not anybody actually needs you. You can let it fire and stay on the couch. And honestly, that’s a skill. It takes practice.

When there is no day

Maybe you read “a day to yourself” and laughed, because there is no day. There is a job, three kids, a parent in the next town. Then the day is forty minutes. The car in the driveway before you go in. The shower with the door locked. Leaving the party at nine instead of eleven, and hugging the host on the way out while you still have something left.

Out of people doesn’t need a whole day. It needs the minutes you’d otherwise give to someone else.

When the couch isn’t enough

It’s okay to be out of people for a while. Tomorrow, you can open the door again.

Tell me about the weeks when the couch isn’t enough. When you’re ready, request a time or write to me.

On solid ground,

Acelli