Hotel room heaven

Yep that's right, I am saying that a hotel room can be heaven. It is not as salacious as that first seems.
Just imagine that you have spent the last twenty years caring for your child's needs every hour of every day. Your entire emaotional state is concerned with ensuring that your child fels secure, loved, and valued. You are the emotional sounding board, in sync with the child's fluctuating moods. When he is happy, you are happy. When anxious you feel pressure to 'make things better'. After all it is 'your responsibility'... or at least somewhere you have taken this imperative as true. The whole living through your child (called emeshing) is a psychological aberration yet when speaking to mothers, I have been privileged to share these revelations. They too feel the same. I am not a pathological weirdo damaging my child by over-investing emotionally. I am just like everybody else.

Not that this is a healthy thing. Indeed I can testify that this is actually draining and emotionally damaging to yourself. You lose yourself as your self-perception is that of [the child's] mother, and your needs and wishes become subsumed by guilt... guilt that you SHOULD not put your needs ahead of your child's.

It makes no sense at all, I know, but it is a powerful 'should'.

We know what should happen to 'shoulds' and 'musts'...

But we are fallible and living in s disconnected society where mothers often feel isolated and unsure of what is the 'right' way to behave as a mother.

There are also very strong calls that "by making time for yourself you are able to be more relaxed, less unfuilfilled and able to be there for your child in a more effective and happier parent-child relationship."

Well this is all very well if your economic circumstances do not require balancing needs between family and self.

Mothers seem 'hard-wired' to put everybody else first.

Since my child has reached adulthood I now feel I am permitted to attend to my own needs and not feel selfish. Meeting my needs is supposed to be part of my wellness routine, and by being well I can feel better about myself.

I can forge an identity of my self that stands apart from my socially constructed identity as mother, sole-parent, welfare mum, dole bludger, perennial student, lazy wastrel, etc... This identity can be 'mature woman'.

As a mature woman, I deserve and need privacy. It is about time that my bedroom and my bathroom (and indeed my study) are my sacred places, not thoroughfares where my son can corner me to gain exclusive attention.

I mean, even the household cats corner me in the toilet assuming that is the perfect place for feline attention! As for putting on make-up, forget it... I almost always jump sky high when either son or cat suddenly enters the bathroom.

I guess that is all my fault by having that '70's attitude that the human body should not be hidden and people should not feel ashamed of their natural body... yeah great call Carol! Especially since I have been ashamed of my body now for over 20 years and avoid mirrors at all costs. How did this lapse of privacy continue through this period?

Not only does my son not recognise doors and doorways into my living zones, to a lesser degree neither does his aged father. At least my bathroom is off limits, and the bedroom MOSTLY.

The excuse to over-ride my need for privacy seems to be a 'need' to pet the cats. If they happen to be on my bed (even if I am in it at the time)... it is supposed to be okay to enter and pat the cat/s!! Since when is this acceptable? Also when a cat is comfy and curled into the armchair asleep behind me in my study whilst I type away, it seems that this is another signal that 'cat patting is allowed'.

Am I being unreasonable here, when I feel that a man who has had no part in my life since conceiving THE CHILD can now assume , just because we share a house
(a large one with three separate living zones), that privacy and Carol's spaces are 'open all hours' when a cat is present?

And why is it that I have that special magnetism over the bloody cats? I didn't go and collect them to give them a home. I said 'no'. I was over-ruled by the two adult males, yet the cats come after me for affection and companionship.

It is all so cliched. Lonely single woman with pet cats as companions. Perhaps because there is truth in the connection between cats and single women. Hey even that spunky beautiful thirtyish blonde detective in Cold Case has a cat living with her in her apartment.... so it should not be seen as a stigmatising symbol of ageing womanhood.

Is that connection with witches and their familiars the problem here? Are older women dangerous in their liberation and raw female power?

Okay then, I am proud to be a cat owner! I am mobilising a subversive identity... but this particular 'witch' cannot summon up enough power to defend her own private space... Ah I only I had a broomstick I would regularly fly off to be alone...

The nearest I can do, is to lash out every so often, when the hotel rewards schemes are offering bonus points, or double point offers, or as was the case last week a $60 plus points night in a 4 star hotel.

I could not wait to book.

Why?

Some would say hotels are tacky, featureless, and devoid of any saving graces. But for me, they symbolise privacy and freedom. I am free to not worry about cleaningbathrooms, laundering linen and making beds. I can make coffee without leaving the widescreen TV. Room service is tempting with bottles of wine and snacks. I can drink a bottle of wine and fall into a spacious bed without worrying about keeping my alcohol level to under 0.5. I can avoid driving by being in the city centre.

I can look at the city lights from my window, the reflections of those fireballs in the darkened surface of the Yarra. I can stroll across and buy chocolates, Chinese, French, Italian, strong coffees and delectable cakes and Danishes... anything that takes my fancy any time I desire it.

I can even ignore it all but still feel free because I have the option to do what I want, without needed to justify it or explain to anybody!

And what's more I can concentrate on writing and using the hotel WIFI, the business centre, or doing laps of the outside heated pool (which nobody uses in winter), and the gym. I can use the yoga mats, the wonderful machines that I adore (without the fear of meeting lycra-clad gym junkies).

I can pretend. I can pretend I am on holiday. I can pretend I am here just for the mid year sales or the theatre, or concerts, galleries or any of the wonders Melbourne offers in winter.

I can just be me. No explanations, no justifications, no demands, just freedom (and no kids or cats).

They become my special places. I am my one and only priority... for at least one night.

I leave feeling recharged.

Yep, those tacky chain hotels are my heavens... at least while the dollars are in my debit card account!