Strangers in a Household

This is what it feels like to be a stranger in your own house.
You wake up late, a little disoriented because you were sure you set your alarm to wake up at a responsible time. For two reasons, you’re tired of waking up disoriented because you’re waking up late and you know that this is not what freshly minted adults do.

Adults wake up in the morning. 
They’re not afraid to start the day.

Once you wake up, you spend the next thirty to forty minutes staying in bed and scrolling through various newsfeeds. Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram and Reddit. You check your emails, your Snapchats and you look at Pinterest recipes for something to do. You swipe left and left again in search of Mr. Right on Tinder. You watch and re watch videos from Youtube, Buzzfeed or Google +. Anything to avoid getting out of bed, and anything from opening your bedroom door.

Finally when your body feels like rot and your brain is in this limbo stage where it is awake and confused as to why you haven’t moved, and your body aches in its rottenness, you get out of bed. It depends on the day and the smell if you shower. Mostly you just make the bed, climb out of dirty and into clean clothes. You open the window and let the 1:00pm sun filter into your room.

It’s the start of a new afternoon. 

After going to the bathroom and releasing the torrential splurge of pee that your body has kept trapped after the last fourteen hours of sleep, you have two options; go back into your bedroom and continue your relentless social media scroll for new/old information or go into the kitchen and make yourself food.

Depending on how much your stomach hurts it’s normally a toss-up between those two.

You walk past your bathroom without washing your face, or brushing your teeth because you’re about to eat so what’s the point.

You walk quietly to the kitchen without saying hello to the person you’ve acknowledged the presence of on the couch. It’s not because you dislike them, and it’s definitely not because you don’t love them. But it’s become easier for you to be silent. 

The key, is that it’s easier on you. But harder for everyone else. And that selfishness tears at you every time you wake up late and every time you avoid opening the door because you’d rather just ignore the fact that your perfect life isn’t perfect. 

To be continued..

-E.B.H