LIFESTYLE

I Have Decided to Become a Hermit

On attempting to fulfill my childhood dream, one bowl of chili at a time.

One word: ticks. (Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash)

I always envisioned myself living alone in a cabin in the woods with a bunch of dogs.

This was when I was a teenager, back when loneliness was an abstract concept and the cabin idyll was just a mental escape trap from adolescent dissatisfaction with everything in general.

During my second marriage, I found it almost impossible to sleep without my husband in bed beside me.

Now, of course, I’m the exact opposite and I can’t imagine laying there for eight hours mingling skin mites with another human being.

I have a lot of food stored up from years of getting take-out for my mom, both due to time constraints and because she liked it. Was it good for her (us)? No. Did we care? Also no.

But now it is time to cook, not just to use up the well-past-their-best-by-date supplies, but to save money, about which I am slightly freaking out.

I commiserate with the people who leave their Social Security-receiving relatives in a recliner post-mortem, continue to cash the checks, and then eventually tell…