Me too! it's why I often room alone at the F2F. I love you all, but when I need to be alone, I NEED to be alone.

Vortex is me. I can be as social as all get out, if I know that I get to recharge later that night in my own space.

Barb, I can relate to my own toys thing. I live alone now, and cherish it. But I've had a few couples stay with me recently and have discovered that by giving them my bedroom, I get to putter around in my office (where I set up my pretty comfortable cot!) and it's FUN! I like being surrounded by my office clutter for a couple of days.

He's always here, and I love him, but I just need a few days by myself per year.

This right here is one of the reasons getting married scares me. I need at least 1 day/WEEK by myself.

I bet you're not a horrible daughter, Sox, so I guess Dr. Laura?

Nope, not Dr. Laura, unless she yelled at her mom for something that she shouldn't be shocked by at all by now. While said mom is ill.

ETA: Simply put, my mom gave me a check for something a month ago and I called her to tell her it was for too much and that I'd give her back $x. Sometime in between then and now, we took my dad out to dinner and she asked if we'd pay for it and just deduct the cost from the $x. No problem. So today, when she was helping me by picking HKF up from school, she wanted to talk about 'settling up' - and had decided that I should be giving her 3 times the original $x because of some really knotty family math that is also related to me being a bad daughter. I knew better than to engage this. I backed away and tried to save it for another time, as I have several other conversations on awkward topics lately (Fox News, racism, etc.). The conversation kept going, I totally lost my cool, and ended up saying what I really think. A lot. In short. I suck.

{{{Sox}}} You do not suck; families are difficult.

Do you really think you suck, Sox, or is that what your mother is saying? Because I gotta say, your mother sucks, not you.

"Every class is a performance."

::nods, nods, nods:: Yup, took me a while to figure this out, and it was another student in a class I was taking that pointed it out to me, that she could see the change where I went from reciting from my teaching guide to "performing" and actually sounding interesting. It was a real eye opener.

This right here is one of the reasons getting married scares me. I need at least 1 day/WEEK by myself.

I am very lucky (and, obvs, Bob is too) that we have similar needs for alone time and no weirdnesses about taking it. Of course, him having to travel for his job a couple of times a month makes it so we have no choice and, frankly, sometimes leads to more apart time then we really want.

This right here is one of the reasons getting married scares me. I need at least 1 day/WEEK by myself.

I was really worried about this before I moved in with TCG, but we are both really good at both being at home and still doing our own thing.

but we are both really good at both being at home and still doing our own thing.

We are as well and, fortunately, have the space to do it.

families are difficult.

This. My mom's complex and knows which buttons to push to gin up a fight (she installed most of them), and I know oh so well by now to just keep money out of the relationship. And yet, I let it sneak in and it bit me in the butt and I lost my cool. The tough part is that I love her so very much and she makes me nuts and I let her. Thanks for letting me vent here. I apologize if this has upset anyone.