It’s not that I don’t like visiting my husband’s biological father and his wife in Indiana. The guest bed has two mattresses, the top one filled thickly with down and covered with a heavy, handmade quilt guaranteed to get even the most stubborn insomniac to sleep. There’s a big yard, a huge park across the street, and the nearby gas station has surprisingly good pizza. A visit to their house means choosing whether to sit in a lawn chair in the shady front yard or on a cushioned bench on the upstairs sunporch. Visitors are welcome to relax and unwind, no pressure to do anything but just be.

So why, then, am I here at home alone while my husband and kids made the drive down to Indiana this morning? The truth is, I like spending time alone. Always have. I go to movies alone, I go to restaurants alone (as long as I have a book or magazine to read), and occasionally, I like to hang out at home alone. And my husband knows that. After 24 years together, he’s become an expert at knowing when my stress level is reaching critical mass.

Sometimes, he comes home from work, rounds up the kids and takes them out to eat, and sometimes he works it out so that he and the kids can drive down to his father’s house and stay overnight. It’s amazing how much 36 hours of having absolutely nothing to worry about can do for my state of mind.

So, it’s Saturday, and I’m alone. They left at 10:30 and by 1:30, when I sat down to write this out longhand with one of my son’s pencils in a ruled notebook I found buried under a pile of mail on my desk, I had watched an entire DVD without have to pause or rewind. While watching the bonus features, I flipped through four magazines and tore out interesting articles to read later so I could recycle the rest. I found all of the pieces to a puzzle my daughter left lying on the coffee table, and stacked it along with three books on her bedroom bookshelf. I opened and sorted a big pile of mail.

And then I drove myself to Wendy’s for a coffee toffee twisted frosty that I did not have to share with anyone.

Tonight, the evening is mine. I could go to the movies, or I could take myself out to eat. I could go to Barnes & Noble and spend as much time as I want flipping through paperbacks without having to sit on a tiny chair in the children’s section watching my daughter play with the same trains she has at home.

I could get sweet and sour shrimp and spring rolls from the take out place up the street and watch the Buffy episode “Once More With Feeling”, turn it up as loudly as I want, and sing along to all the songs without anyone rolling their eyes at me, and without having to share the fortune cookies.

It’s Saturday night, and I’m home alone. Once in a while, it’s what I call the perfect evening.