Solitary Confinement

Essays

Sep 24

Having no plans on a Friday night is an introvert’s dream. In law school, before cell phones and texting, I could pretend I wasn’t home as I sat idly on the couch, Mountain Dew in a large cup full of ice, Die Hard DVD playing, while the phone rang until it died a slow, long death right next to me, along with any potential invites to leave my sanctuary.

When I didn’t have sports on a weekend morning growing up, I liked to start my morning off with two Entenmann’s chocolate donuts and a glass of milk, followed by a glass of orange juice. Then I would wait thirty minutes and have a bowl of Fruity Pebbles. My Strat-o-Matic basketball board game was already laid out on my bed for a full day of games.

I got home from work tonight and did nothing the entire night. I watched YouTube, moved things on my calendar to tomorrow, played with my cats, watched football, and sat in my bed. There's comfort in intentional stillness. I texted my son in the Philippines and heard back. I texted my daughter and didn’t. I texted with my sister. I made myself dinner. I am still in my bed.

I’ve never been agoraphobic, but strangers are so unpredictable. When I stayed in my room as a kid, or in my house as an adult, I avoided nuisances. I can wander left-footed into my kitchen, scoop a handful of peanuts into my mouth, and then wash them down with an unsweetened iced tea from the line of them in the fridge. No one in my house will yell or smoke in the wild.

When I left my job as a prosecutor after eight years and opened my own law practice, I had to start visiting clients in jail. I’d been to jails before, but this was different. It felt more dank on this side. One time, as a prosecutor on a jail tour, they took us by the women’s holding cell at the Broward County Jail, and some ladies were spitting on the glass and rubbing themselves against the interior bars while yelling at me. I couldn’t wait to get home that night. A small part of me thought, “I still got it,” though.

Mail-order catalogs and the Internet have saved me from the hustle and hysteria of holiday shopping in malls. My frustration used to build to a boiling point as each passerby banged me with the corner of their giant Macy’s bag because they couldn’t walk, hold bags, and handle little Jimmy, who was crying because he couldn’t get a Toy Story character with globules of snot pouring from his nose. Even in Florida, I wanted to buy ear muffs.

I used to cry when my kids went to their mom’s for their half-week after we got divorced. After I dried my tears, I went to Taco Bell, ate some in the car, and brought the rest home to eat in my underwear on my couch in front of the TV. It was hard to sleep without them at home. For all the years I found so much pleasure in solitary confinement, I never realized how lost I would feel in it as a parent.