I hate coming home to an empty house! It's scary. Every night, I have this nighttime routine that helps me get to bed without too much nervousness. From my back living room, there is a hallway which leads to the bathroom and then to the 3 bedrooms. I used to have to have the two extra bedroom doors closed, but I don't have to do that anymore. I do have to go through quite a lot though.
Just getting into the house is a bit scary. My garage door stopped working last week, so now I have to get out in the dark and fumble with the door to get it unlocked. As I turn onto my street, I turn my brights on and keep them on until I turn off the car. All the way down, I am checking out my surroundings. When I get to the door, I get in as fast as possible and lock it. That's just the beginning.
When heading to my room, I leave the living room light and the tv on while I get the dog's food. I have to leave the bathroom light on at this time too, and I have already been back to my room to turn on that light and the tv. On the way back to the room, I turn things off as I pass them. The tv on in the room serves as kind of a buffer to the silence that would have followed from turning off the TV in the living room. Once in my room, I leave the tv on until I can't keep my eyes open anymore, and then I finally turn it off and go to bed.
It may sound crazy to all of you people who got married before you had your own place, but there are a lot of crazies out there, and I live just outside of the brick wall that surrounds the rich part of Irving, Las Colinas. That means there are no security guards roaming through my neighborhood at night. No neighborhood crime watch. No home security systems (not that it would do much good if someone comes in with you!)
When you're home alone, you hear EVERY noise that your house makes. In talking to my other single friends who live alone, I have found that I'm not the only one with my crazy nighttime ritual. Man I can't wait until there's another body in the house!
4 comments:
I totally understand what you're saying. Although, I never did live on my own, my husband does work 7pm-7am. Therefore, I am home alone most nights. Just wait until you have to do it with kids. It's even scarier because you start to think about how to protect them from the creeps out there. By the way, not only does David work nights, but he has been in Africa since July 5 and will not be home until the 23. YIKES!
It is scary......... Joey travels some with school & BB, so I do the same thing (turning it all on & then off one by one!)
HOpefully you'll have a Mitch there soon!!
I have a similare routine when I get to work. I get to work at 4:30 am (pitch black outside) and the rec commission is in an old Catholich church building! It makes lots of weird creaking noises that I notice until I get the gym radio on and cardio room tv on! The worst was the morning a mouse ran across the floor in front of me! Yikes!!!!
Yup, I can totally relate to this even though I never lived on my own. And JB is right-it's even worse when you have kiddos to think about!
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