Goodbye… it was lovely as always …

Oufff…
At last, they’re gone.

Do you know that feeling?
The door clicks shut and suddenly the whole house exhales. No scraping chairs, no chorus of voices, no forced laughter. Just silence. Heavy, sticky, liberating.

A few days ago, the great invasion. Family. Announced months in advance. You were excited, of course. Aunt Margaret and Uncle Peter with their two unnervingly perfect children. Granddad, astonishingly robust, though everyone is quietly counting how many more family gatherings he’ll manage. The younger brother, with his latest flame, stepping cluelessly into the circus where “lively” really means “exhausting”. Only the mother-in-law was missing. She can take her time. Years, if she likes.

And then that moment. The door shuts. You look at each other. Tired eyes. Mouths that can no longer force a smile. You both know: one more evening and someone would have snapped.

Suddenly, in dead silence, the escape begins. One of you bolts up the stairs three at a time: the bathroom, scalding water pounding down, clouds of soothing lavender and eucalyptus. The other vanishes into the utility room, swallowed by darkness. Tracksuit pulled from the laundry basket, trainers laced like weapons. One last breath, then out into the winter’s cold that burns the skin. Heart racing, steam clouds spilling from the mouth, mind blissfully blank.

And yet the hook remains, lodged deep:
Why do we let them in, year after year? Why do we plaster on smiles, rejoice, play at family? Perhaps because only in their company do we feel, with such clarity, how much we long to be left alone?