I fell asleep in my chair the other day. Not an event that garners much remembrance normally, but this one lingered more than usual. I would say it’s that lingering that occurs after handling garlic for too long. Every time your hands are near your face you’re reminded again of that seemingly inconsequential time you simply cooked dinner. This time, I simply came home from work, sat down in a chair, took off my shoes, and promptly fell asleep. I’ve now lost count of how many times I’ve been told it was a familiar sight.
The fiancé and I bought a house and are getting married. I recently turned 29. Not much has directly felt different though. The number may say “almost 30,” but I don’t, or well now, didn’t, feel like “adult” applied much. Maybe I just didn’t want to acknowledge it? The phone in my front right pocket began to vibrate, two quick mechanical pulses, signaling a message of some kind. Pulling the phone out, I saw the time was 4:30pm and realized, much to my disappointment, that I had stayed late at work again. A common theme anymore.
Looking up at the ceiling with a dejected, audible, but quiet “sigh” I could feel the stiffness in my neck release slightly, with a couple cracking sounds thrown in. The stains on the ceiling were still apparent, from the recent thunderstorms, and looked to actually be getting worse. Shutting down my computer was always a task that took longer than it should, adding a few more minutes to my already delayed arrival at home. “Traffic is going to be a mess right now,” I thought, as I packed up my things. It was always amazing, infuriatingly so, how different the travel home would be even within a half hour.
Leave at 3:30pm, no traffic, but leave at 4:00pm or later? Good luck. And so, I trudged along, enjoying the stop and go traffic, joined together with the other impatient drivers who wanted nothing more than to just be at whatever destination they were headed to. Drives like these, though, always give ample time to ones own thoughts. Either that or listen to the same, tired questions on sports talk radio about the Eagles some more. Same questions, different day. Same ride home, just a different day. Pulling up to the house, I was already able to start adding more things to the list of plans for the night.
The really exciting things like weeds that needed pulling, grass that needed mowing. One can’t ever help but pull some lingering weeds though, it’s therapeutic. Walking into the house, I almost forgot about the deck with two large holes in it that needed some time and the stairs in the back that were just begging for some attention. It was more to add to the list. A small black figure could be seen through the blinds on the door, its tail slowly waving behind it. A faint “mrow” could be heard through the door as a little black nose and some whiskers appeared in between the blinds, bent a bit to form to the cat’s face.
The blinds were starting to crease some, done so slowly over the last few months after we increased the occupancy of the house from two, to two and a little black cat. The mail on the table was as exciting as ever: bills, bills, and more bills. Grabbing the pile and settling into the nearby chair, I untied and pulled off my shoes. I had tied them too tight today and they definitely appreciated the relief. My eyes were feeling extremely heavy, heavier than usual no doubt. “I’ll just close them for a second,” I thought to myself, letting them fall shut, turning the world around me dark.
Growing up, my father worked long hours and never took a day off. I have vivid memories of him coming home, grabbing the mail, and pulling up various weeds before coming inside. It was a consistent theme that has been engrained in me. The piece of this I remember the most, though, was finding him asleep in his chair, shirt untucked, shoes untied and off, still in the suit he wore that day. I awoke, startled, to my fiancé holding the cat, laughing. I could smell the cat’s food and I quickly realized how long I had fallen asleep for (an hour to be precise).
Through her laughter, she barely got out the statement “look like your father much? ” Realizing what she meant by that, I quickly recollected my arrival home: grab mail, pull weeds, notice things to be done that can’t be done due to time, come inside, slump onto the chair, and fall asleep. “Couldn’t be more similar,” I thought to myself. I gave a chuckle and added “welp, I guess this is what it’s like being an adult, huh? ” Buying a house, planning a wedding, and even being a year off from 30 wasn’t enough for me to think that way. It took falling asleep in a chair to make me actually feel like an adult.
