Saturday, for the first time in years, I kicked around the place in my pj’s. And I wasn’t even sick. And it felt SO good.
I used to take a pajama day, now and then, back in the day, when I didn’t have offspring to care for, and later, even when I did, if he happened to be at the ex’s for the weekend. (And if I happened to be between boyfriends. If I wasn’t, spending the weekend in bed took on a whole different meaning, he-he-he!)
But though sex is usually fun, and family and friend relationships are very important, and there are always Things That Must Be Done, recharging one’s batteries is important too. Sometimes it’s good just to turn it all off - the phone, the To-Do list, even the computer (I confess, I did play on the computer, some. Still, I avoided all the things I "should" do, like checking my e-mail, updating my FaceBook status, writing my blog...)
I fed the cat right on time, of course (she’d have meowed me into madness if I hadn’t.) Read a little. Napped a little. Made myself a big yummy brunch, with a mimosa. Did some premature munching of Halloween candy (so, report me, I didn’t end up getting any trick-or-treaters anyway!)
I realized I’ve been starved for pajama time for years now. From the time I started seeing my OCPD b-f, seven and a half years ago, I spent every weekend with him. During almost six years living together, I think we spent two mornings lingering in bed till noon. The rest - we had to get up, there were Things To Do.
Often I got out of bed long before him, so I could do yoga and other exercises before he woke up, since I always got many negative comments about me doing them. (Though when I slacked off, I also got many negative comments about the weight I put on.)
Occasionally we went and did something fun, like a hike in the mountains - but it was all OCPD-style. Discussed to death during the week that led to the weekend, the park or path pre-selected, a plan laid out - and of course, the weather had to cooperate fully, or all was ruined. One could not hike if the weather was too hot or too cold.
The weather. Ugh! The last few years, maintaining a constant temperature in the house became another obsession. It "should" always be 70 degrees F - no warmer, no cooler. Since the house didn’t have central heating or air, and since he relied on an outdoor thermometer perched high on an indoor shelf (yes, I tried to get him to use something more accurate, but what did I know?) this required constant adjustment of doors, windows, fans, turning on the window AC units or wall heater - and him generally scolding me.
All variances in temperature were my fault. Some really were - f’instance, sometimes I turned the wall heater setting up to 7, because it was a chilly January morning, I had to take a shower and didn’t care to catch pneumonia. This meant that - briefly - the thermometer might indicate it was 75 degrees. Even 78, the horror! He sternly forbade me to turn the setting up beyond "6," then later, he revised that to "no higher than "5."
Sometimes I didn’t open the correct door to carry out the litterbox scoopings, which meant I let out too much heat (or cool.) Or I wanted to scramble eggs on a July morning, after 7:30 a.m., when I should know that anything to be made on the stove must be cooked before 7 am. There were toaster issues, of course, too: the amount of heat the toaster put into the house, the national security crisis if the toaster was left plugged in afterwards, rather than being unplugged, held upside down over the sink and all crumbs shaken out; repeat with toaster right side up and crumb tray removed. (I’m not sure whether someone can be officially diagnosed with OCPD unless s/he has some sort of toaster obsession.)
But sometimes the temperature in the house simply varied because it does. SoCal can offer some wild rides - this morning it was 52 degrees when I left for work, today at noon it was in the 90's. This mattered naught to b-f - the variance was always, somehow, my fault.
Anyway, back to boring, lazy me in my pj’s. Doing absolutely nothing fruitful, worrying about nothing, controlling nothing. I did run the heater (I’d just had the pilot light lit the night before) with fans running and windows open, so as to burn off the accumulated dust in the unit. When it stopped being stinky, I think I turned it off. Or maybe I closed the windows.
It doesn’t really matter. I just know I felt warm, and comfy, and unstressed. I never once checked to see what the temperature was according to the thermostat. Nobody was telling me what I should be doing, when I should be doing it, or to rag on me about anything. Me not trying to control anything, even the temperature inside my ‘partment.
And it felt so good.
