Nice to be Home

I’m kind of new to this whole “enjoying my life” thing I’ve got going on lately. Sure, a few years ago I liked being alive. I thought I had a pretty good setup back when I had to drink just to like being home and sleep never felt like enough and school felt like a way to delay my inevitable spiral into unemployability. Yeah, a really good setup.

I’m a lot happier now. I can tell because people say things to me like “you seem a lot happier now” or “oh you didn’t die. Cool, are you still doing that party trick where you drink all the liquor and then leave?” And I say to these people that yes, I’m much happier now, and no, I didn’t die, and also no, if I did that now I’d die.

All this is evident in the difference I felt when I came home yesterday compared to the last time I came home from travelling: I missed this place.

The last few times I left home for any extended period was to visit family, and coming back to my shitty apartment was like confirming everything they had observed about my life when saw me. I came home, saw how I lived and remembered why I lived like that, and immediately all the exhaustion and self-loathing and anxiety came pouring back like it had only taken a little vacation too. Who wants to come home and see how much of a piece of shit they are and then lean into that feeling because you don’t know what else to do. It wasn’t great.

In contrast, coming home yesterday was a relief. It doesn’t matter that the apartment is a little messy or that I forgot food has to be bought and prepared for there to be something to eat. It doesn’t matter because this place is filled with evidence of a life I actually like. Key among that evidence is a bed I missed almost as much as my cat.

Anyway, it’s nice to be home.

And I slept like I’d died.