They're Halfway Home, Goddammit

I haven't heard from my folks in a while.  I don't miss them -- yeah, that sounds harsh, but it's true -- but it is still funny that I hadn't heard from them for, oh, five days at least.  Plus there are some e-mails that they need to answer because I can't.  The business of making sure their business is still going while they're away is like a second job to me, and sometimes I resent it.

Yesterday morning I was curious to see if there's a chance they'd contact me through WhatsApp.  Before they left Father left me a copy of their itinerary.  Whenever they're at sea, I can't reach them.  (Well, I can, but according to our plan, talking on the phone while they're on a cruising ship costs five bucks a minute.  No way.)  I know they couldn't be at sea for five days, so I was wondering if they'd be on land yesterday or some time this weekend.  So I scrolled down the list, looking for yesterday's date, saw that they were on land yesterday (and they did contact me later in the morning) ... and realized that of the two columns of dates and destinations, I had to go to the top of the second column to get yesterday's location.  Crap, they're more than halfway home.

I don't miss them.  Again, that sounds harsh, but it's true, I don't miss them.  I have loved having the house to myself.  I like the quiet.  I like not hearing them bicker, if not outright argue.  The only rattling of voices occurs in my head, where it should be.  I like strewing my laundry on the floor to sort whites and coloreds and those that need to be washed in cold water versus those that need to be washed in warm.  I like having the tie I wore for Super Bowl LII lying on the couch and no one giving me shit about it.  I am living the bachelor life -- even better since I'm living at home rent-free -- and it's perfect.

I wonder if it's going to be like this, and if I'm going to feel the same way, once they are gone.  I wonder about their impending demise (and I mean impending in an we're-all-gonna-die kind of way) and how it's going to feel knowing that they won't ever be back.  Will I ever miss them?  Will it hit me some random moment that they're gone for good, and will I then break down?  Well, right now, buoyed by knowing (and getting bummed out) that they'll be back ... no, I don't think I'll miss them.  Right now, as I type this, all I can think about is the nagging, the complaining, the yelling, the incessant expectation to go back to school or find a girlfriend.  Every time I see I never live up to their expectations.  I feel like a disappointment whenever I'm around them.  And that's why it feels like such a relief when they're not around me.

So I am beyond sad -- I am in fact crestfallen -- that they are less than a month away (I think) from coming back home.  At some point (not too soon) I have to tidy up things and get a stripper to clean the house.  But until then I need to relax, stop and smell the roses, and be grateful of the time I have in the house I grew up in, alone.