My dear old dad used to say all he wanted for Christmas was peace and quiet, which was an unfathomable idea for a kid, the quiet bit and the part about not wanting anything for Christmas.
But I get it now, because when you’re a parent every bang or noise in the house brings with it some sort of required action – an adhesive plaster, a hug, adjudication, toast with vegemite. If everything is quiet, you are not, for the moment, required.
Tonight, while they are all camping, I am here without them and sitting in silence, with none of the usual music, barking or screaming noises to be heard. I am in my pjs, there’s chicken cacciatore on the stove, and I know I should say I miss them but I really don’t. So hang me, all you pious, perfect mothers, because right now I am relishing the peace and quiet.
I’m sure I’m not the only parent in the world who has a foreboding sense of cup-of-tea-interruptus whenever they hear someone running on the floorboards, or the word “muuuuuuuuum” coming from somewhere, even if it’s next door.
Because you are never not “on” when the others are at home. Someone always wants something. In the school holidays, my eight-year-old screamed from another room for 10 minutes while I spoke to a colleague on the phone. When I went to her, I said what on earth is wrong and she said she wanted a banana. She chose that moment to smile at me though, clever girl. It was a Cheshire-cat moment that saved her life and a week’s worth of iPad time.
Right now, in a quiet house on a Saturday night, with no one to ask me for anything, there’s no place I’d rather be. Being alone is such a rare and lovely thing.
Why ever didn’t I relish having a house to myself in the old days when I was often alone, while flatmates worked or partied. When they were around it was happy-chatty-party time. Without them the house was just a dust-ridden old thing with bad carpet owned by a nameless landlord who wouldn’t fix the heater.
Shared rentals were cold, old bastards, in all sorts of ways, not just because they were never properly heated. When they were full there was always someone in your face or your Coolabah cask, yet the moment they closed the door behind them I would pine for the comfort of knowing there was someone else under the same roof – with a packet of cigarettes, should I run out, or the ability to save me from opportunistic axe-murderers.
Then everyone would come home with six-packs or a bottle of Tia Maria and start a party just as I’d be about to fall asleep.
Back then, Saturday night alone watching When Harry Met Sally was a metaphor for a life that was showing the signs of not ever including any kind of Harry or Sally. It meant you either had a massive hangover, it was a week until payday, or there was nowhere to go and no one to go with, none of which was good.
Not for me though, not now.
Tomorrow they’ll be back, and as soon as they walk in they’ll want to know where the iPad is, so tonight I rest. When Harry Met Sally is actually not a bad idea either.
