I’ve been spending the past two weeks at home due to some medical issues and at first I really welcomed the time away. Work is, at best, stressful. It’s a good job and I’m thankful for it, but there are times I literally just want to sit on the floor in my office and tear my hair out of my head one strand at a time. That kind of stress takes its toll on a body. So I thought, “Cool. I’ll sit home and eat bonbons and watch trashy daytime television and catch up on my sleep and just generally check out for a couple weeks.” And that would have happened, too. If it were anyone but me. But it’s me. So it went more like this:

Run errands.
Tons of errands.
Buy groceries.
Make dinner.
Help with homework.
Taxi to a friend’s house for Jake.
Taxi to the drugstore for school supplies for Kaileb.
Back to the grocery store.
Taxi to the doctor for myself.
Courthouse (whole other long story).
Video Store.
Verizon Store.
Clean house.
Pace the floors.
Organize house.
Pace.
Clean entire file cabinet one paper at a time.
Still pacing.

Here’s the problem, see.

When you’re alone with yourself all you can think about is yourself. You learn a lot about the person you are. Just beware, you may not like that person. I’m just sayin’, it happens almost all the time.

So when you spend that much time alone with only yourself for company you find that there’s all the time in the world for questioning yourself. You’ve a captive audience in yourself. Ask me anything, I’m not going anywhere. Or so the brain tells the heart.

Then the heart starts nagging the brain. The heart figures, “Hey, here’s this idle brain just sittin’ here doin’ nothin’ and brother, I gots me some troubles. I’m gonna unload all these burdens on the brain. He ain’t got nothin’ goin’ on.” — I’m not entirely sure why the heart sounds like an ignorant redneck, but I don’t necessarily care, either.

So the heart unloads and the brain, having no escape such as the ringing of the phone or an incoming fax or email or unhappy employee to distract it, must listen. And hear. And comprehend. And become very, very afraid.

You have all the time in the world to question your parenting and general worth as a human being. You’re inundated with regrets and wistful longing. You find yourself on your hands and knees in the closet going through your children’s report cards from elementary school. You find yourself cleaning and organizing and dusting every nook and cranny. You find yourself clutching a photo album and alternately laughing out loud then crying. You find yourself despising the passage of time, that immortal thief. You find yourself heartsick and headstrong. You make promises and demands of yourself to be better, be more. You cower in the face of your failures and make solemn vows to make it all up somehow.

And what lesson did I learn from all of this, you might ask? What have I come away with as a result of such deep, serious introspection? Well, it’s simple.

I have to work. I have to. It’s not about income or changing the world or even setting a good example for my children. No. It’s about one thing and one thing only: I can’t stand to be alone with myself.