I’ve been thinking about the homebody concept. It gets a bad rap, a cute silly rap, often in a disparaging way.
As a homebody, I want to clarify a few things:
Homebodies don’t necessarily thwart or avoid adventure. Many of us like adventure, thank you very much. We are also not boring.
I’ve had a lot of time to think. I’m a new empty nester. I reviewed my last 18 years as a Mom and then I reviewed my childhood as I embark on a new project. I think about thinking a lot. Sorry, just the way I am.
I love being home. I suppose it’s because as a youth I wasn’t ‘home’ that much. Nor was I allowed to relax in my home or in my own room.
If I wasn’t at school, I was training in a pool or gym often over 5 hours per day. So most of my childhood and teen years, I wasn’t home enjoying the peace and safety of a home. If you had a parent that always had to be ‘doing something’ then it’s fairly certain they put that onto their children.
If I was home, I had anxiety. While there are always good moments in every family, most kid’s brains would tend to remember the smashing plates, the arguing, the screaming, the noise, the music, or slamming doors. That’s just how we are wired. Don’t believe me — read The Body Keeps Score.
Thus as I went to college and later carved out various homes in all forms, first single apartment, a large room for rent in a lady’s mansion in my youth, a high-rise with a view, etc. all these forms of home, I settled in and created myself.
I could create a space of peace with colors and comfort and smells that I chose. I could entertain with those I care for and love. I could sit in peace and hear my own thoughts, read at leisure, not feel guilty for watching a TV show. The time would stop with a cat’s purr. That is delightful. I could write and hear God’s whisper and cry and journal and weep from the past. I could do that all in my home, a healing pitstop on earth.
I could avoid the egg shells. It’s the egg shell feeling in your sinews that create adult anxiety.
No more egg shells.
Thus I have determined, I am a hobbit, so get over it.
Hobbits are blessed creatures. To read their lives of fireplaces, and books and hearths, and vittles and drink — what a glorious home they create. I am sure you’ve watched them or read about them. And they DO have adventures. They just re-charge in their hobbit holes.
Anyway, there will be more. 2025 is the year to ink it.
Just kidding regarding being a hobbit. But we do have a cat named Gandalf the Grey.
-C. Nor.
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