High Maintenance Dreams

As a high maintenance person, there are lots of things that I want. I want the room around me to be clean always. I need the temperature to be between 65-90 Fahrenheit and for it only to rain during the night between 1 and 5. I want the wifi to be fast, my chicken to be dark meat, my meat to be medium well, and for there to be chairs at every event that I attend. But what I want the most other than to just be married already is to be lower maintenance.

This comes into play every Sukkos and Pesach. In my post, "Get The Hell Away" I wrote about how important it is for me to get away for yom tov. Getting away means avoiding the same people who have seen me singles through a decade of holidays and, at this point, treat me like I've contacted a skin eating bacteria and they are watching me be eaten alive in front of them (little do they know how true that is. ) It means not having to sit on a couch next to newly married siblings and in laws who have discovered a new color in their spouse's eyes that they just want to examine and how cool is it and isn't he hilarious and please stop. FYI Anthony Bridgerton, foreplay at a family chol hamoed trip is never ok, even if it is croquet. It means a bit of rejuvenation and a break from the routine and from any family drama that may arise.

Shavuos and Rosh Hoshana are easy, two to three day holidays that zoom by and are simple to spend with a friend or between friends in another community.

Sukkos and Pesach are endless and complicated. On Pesach, I can barely find anything to eat in my own home. Going somewhere else means risking starving to death. And, what if the don't eat gebrokts, or peel their fruits or some other insanity arises? Then you're stuck for 8 days basically starving to death.

On Sukkos you may find yourself with a family who is overly makbid on the sukkah and eats outside in 95 degree weather or 55 degrees. I know one is not considered as severe as the other but please talk to my seasonal depression because my ears are not listening. What if they insist it's "just a sprinkle" during Hurricane Sandy? Worse, what if they bought one of those cute two person sukkahs when they were newlyweds and 8 children, 4 in-laws, and 17 guests later are still crammed in?

I love my friends. But I get exhausted from even my dearest friends in about....98 minutes. Also, the length of an ideal movie. I need variety of people and I need space. I need time to read and to be able to sleep in.

So, then, what of hotels? I would love to go to a Pesach hotel. Please make this dream possible by donating at the comment link below. I have looked in to babysitting at one of these establishments, but I stopped babysitting years ago and Pesach is my time off of work, I don't want to spend it working.

I really need a gig where I have like 3 friends going to the same hotel and I watch their kids at night when they go to sleep because I, too, like to go to bed at 7 PM and not go to the packed, crowded, and chairless Jewish music concerts. That way I could circle between friends, not feel like a freeloader, eat myself silly, and get the relaxation I so deserve.

I wish I was chilled. I wish I could invite myself out for an eight day holiday and eat whatever and need no sleep and not get overwhelmed by having to be social. I wish I found it fun to be stuffed into a hotel room with 10 other girls 20-30 and to take care of strangers' children in an area far too perilously close to the water for people to be leaving their children with strangers.

I'm proud of myself that I went away for Rosh Hashana this year and had an amazing time. That's lower maintenance than I used to be.

Of course, marriage would solve a lot of these problems.

Disclaimer: I KNOW MARRIAGE DOESN'T SOLVE ALL OF YOUR PROBLEMS I AM USING ONE EXAMPLE WHERE IT SOLVES SOME PROBLEMS. PLEASE DO NOT RESPOND TO THIS BY LETTING ME KNOW HOW MUCH YOU HATE MARRIAGE. NO ONE WANTS TO HEAR THAT.

If I were married I would have a living space of some sort where I could potentially spend yom tov. I could also come to visit my parents and do foreplay in front of my single siblings (though by the time I get there it will be my nieces and nephews who I am foreplaying in front of.) The people in this community wouldn't look at me with their big sad eyes unless I took more than two months to produce live young, which is odd, because live young take nine months to cook fully. The family drama would still exist but instead of having to wait until after yom tov to text my friends and get validation about how insane my parents/siblings/inlaws are, I could hopefully just look at my spouse and remind him that I told him validating my complaints and self hatred are a major part of our relationship.

I'd also hopefully be bringing my family some happiness by coming home and gracing them with my presence as opposed to now where they get graced and are like "darn, do we have enough bedrooms for this sad single person or is she staying in a bathtub?"

Perhaps as I get older I will lower my standards and be able to spend Pesach out. There's no place like home is a double edged sword and I want the good edge, but I keep cutting myself on the bad edge.

Once again, at least there are always books.