It’s nice to go away on vacation, and it’s nice to come home again.
At least that’s what everyone says. But this soothing platitude doesn’t take into account the appalling day that generally follows.
I’m sure you know what I mean. One goes from Transports of Joy to the Slough of Despond in about 15 minutes.
The Transports of Joy aspect is always sweet, perhaps because it is so disarmingly brief. The car pulls into the driveway and you get the happy jolt of returning home and seeing how lush Washington always is, no matter where else you might have been.
Whether you’ve have been gone for a weekend or three months, there’s invariably a surge of pleasure as you turn the front-door key. There’s the comfy scent of home, and the familiar contours of the entrance way, and the satisfaction of seeing your own belongings. Even the pile of mail holds promise: Maybe there’s a check, or even a real letter!
Yes, however stimulating it might have been to explore the larger world, there really is no place like home.
Which, alas, is key to understanding the Slough of Despond part.
There is no place like home, indeed. There is no place like home to harbor reproachful piles of electricity and gas and Verizon bills, school forms, and pleas from charities.
There is no place like home to have scuffed baseboards that you suddenly notice need touching up, or raggedy places in the ceiling that need plastering and only become conspicuous when you return after a sojourn away. There is no place like home to sprout weeds in the walkway, or to have a lawn strewn with wet, pulpy newspapers held together only by their plastic wrapping.
Furthermore, there is no place like home when you arrive late at night and the fridge contains only a tub of ricotta, a jar of mayonnaise, and a hank of parsley that has liquefied in your absence. Home is where you find the stack of overdue library books you intended to drop off before you left. Home is where the laundry is.
Within minutes of arriving home, the elation has dissipated. Gloom sets in. People need to eat, and there’s no food. Everyone’s exhausted; yet it can be maddeningly difficult to rest after long hours of traveling.
A quarter of an hour ago it was bliss to be home – why does it all now feel like a burden?
Thank goodness that it only takes a day or so for normalcy and good cheer to reassert themselves. The mountain of dirty laundry turns into neat stacks of clean clothes. Some poor sap sorts the mail. And with the suitcases stowed and the refrigerator restocked, those scuffed baseboards miraculously again recede into invisibility.
A short time later, why, it’s almost as if you’d never gone away in the first place. …
Meghan Cox Gurdon’s column appears on Sunday and Thursday. She can be contacted at [email protected].
