Home Alone: Daddy Style

My family has been away on vacation for the past week, leaving me behind to have a career.  For a family man, time away from the domestic cohabitants is always disorienting, but remaining behind while the family goes away is much more vertigo inducing than the more familiar business trip arrangement.  Coming back to your own empty home at night can evoke for the modern father something of an existential crisis, for the behavioral cues remain, but none of the stimuli.

Some things I have learned from being home alone for a week:

-That by turning over the TV remote to my wife and children for the last decade, I haven't really been missing anything.

-That I had been unjustly blaming my children for the quantity of laundry we produce every week.

-That eating certain types of foods should be consumed at certain regular intervals is just a socially assigned convention that can easily be dispensed with.

-Same with sleep.

-That being childless would not have resulted in greater overall work productivity (please note blog posting frequency over the past week).

-That the pleasure, joy, depth, structure and meaning in my life comes from being a husband and a father.

Time to go get on a plane.  Happy Fourth of July, everyone!