Home Alone 3: Attachment Family in Texas

I am a mature adult.

I am safe in my home.

I can take care of myself, daughter, and dogs.

I am woman, hear me . . . whine like a little girl from under the blankets with my flashlight?

That, too.

Today my husband flew to Las Vegas for work (cough, cough) leaving me behind to take care of our family. No problem, right? Our daughter is three, reasonably well-behaved, and very good at articulating her wants and needs - ALL her wants and needs. We have four dogs, three of whom would be more than happy to defend us against all intruders large and small (and one dog who is more than happy to let the others do the defending, thankyouverymuch). My retired-Navy dad is ten minutes away, and my sister is only an hour out. With my emergency response system firmly in place, I am not too proud to admit that I'm still more than a little afraid of the dark whenever my husband isn't home.

It's every bit as irrational as it sounds. My husband is a wonderful man in every sense of the word, but he's no Chuck Norris. He doesn't know martial arts, doesn't own a weapon (at my request), and hasn't regularly participated in sports in at least five years. Still, there is something about a second adult, particularly male, that makes the entire house feel safer. Now, however, the reality is that he is out of town and I've seen my last hour of sleep for the next five days.

I'll do what any self-respecting imitator of Macaulay Caulkin would do. I'll stack cans by the door (that my dogs will surely knock down), leave all dog-barriers between me and my daughter down (for my dogs to eat us out of house and home), and sleep with a baseball bat under my pillow (that I will undoubtedly drop on my foot before this week is over). I'll call someone every morning and every night as though the twelve hours in between are not enough time to break into my house and do any number of unmentionable crimes. I'll check the locks regularly and leave lights on in the windows, and yet with all of this foolproof defense in place, I still will not sleep.

Here's what I will do instead. I will jump at every. single. sound. My rationale will be that if the sound is so loud that even I can hear it, it's probably something to worry about. I will check on my daughter three times per night instead of one. I will close the blinds to hide the inside of my house from the outside world only to open them again out of the unreasonable fear that closed blinds will make it look like I'm trying to hide something. I will read book after mind-numbing book before finally giving way to sleep . . . just in time to awake to the blaring rooster that lives in my alarm clock.

As a comfort to myself, I will do things I can't do when my husband is home. I will let the house get messy during the day, but knowing me I will then clean it every night because I can no longer stand the mess. I will buy my coffee in addition to making it at home, but then I'll undoubtedly feel guilty for spending $5 on something I can make for $1. I'll consider buying new clothes and spend hours looking at shopping websites, but the aforementioned exhaustion will prevent me from actually retrieving my wallet to punch in my credit card number.

I will repeat this routine everyday for four days until I will finally reach that moment where I brace myself in front of the mirror, throw my shoulders back, chin up, and prepare to admit that I, at the ripe old age of 28, am still afraid of the Boogey Man. Just as I start to form the words, however, one of two things will occur. Either my husband will finally come home, staving off the humiliating confession for a few more months, or, more likely, another noise will occur and I will abandon the mirror in my thirty-second dash to the top of the stairs, fully prepared to rescue my daughter from danger. Then, when I realize that I lost my epiphanous moment of honesty to "danger" in the form of a thirty-pound puppy lunching on Barbie Buffet 2011, I will collapse on the ground and accept the fact that sleep will only come in a huddled ball in front of my daughter's door (at least until my husband comes home).

I remember bravery. I remember being a self-sufficient, self-respecting adult. I would like to say that I can build myself back into the person who could walk around late at night without a fear in the world, but at the moment it's only Day One and I'm already too tired for such a battle. Instead, I'm off to drag my pillow and blanket to the top of the stairs in the unlikely hope that I'll still find a way to sleep in my own bed. What can I say? I like to kid myself (and the Moment of Honesty is still four days away).