Dorothy had it right.

For all of her adventuring and snazzy shoes, there really is no place like home.

When you are feeling under the weather, there is no place like in your jammies, in your bed, a dog snuggled under the blankets on one side, a cat perched on your head. You are a motley crew ready to fight flying monkeys or doze off under the weight of a thousand poppies; reality and roads of yellow brick blur together, all but a fever dream.

I started to feel better this morning, but as an easily overwhelmed introvert (with volunteer work planned for tomorrow) I decided I needed one more day of hot tea and even hotter baths to make sure I was REALLY over this thing.

As an adult person, it is sometimes hard to give ourselves permission to just “take a day.” Or two or three….

It is hard to admit that sometimes we just don’t feel good.

Sometimes our bodies or our brains or our hearts just ache.

Sometimes we are just overwhelmed by life and responsibilities and adulting.

Sometimes we would just like to sit quietly and read a book that matters rather than engage in mindless activities that don’t.

A few years ago I called in sick to work.

The truth….I wasn’t really sick.

I was the kid that never skipped school. My parents both had extremely high work ethics and unless you were actively dying, you went to school because it was your job to be there.

So when I woke up to the sound of rain on an early Arizona morning (which is a rare thing because it usually rains in the evenings and overnight) I was tempted.

Rain is my favorite weather and the chance to spend a day enjoying it rather than missing it while working in an office without any windows was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up.

I convinced myself I didn’t feel good while in the shower, made a call to the “sick line” and then made myself a cup of tea

I was a few chapters away from completing The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami, so I took the book and the tea to to porch and sat under the eaves, wrapped in an afghan, reading, sipping, and listening to the rain.

This “stolen day” is still one of my happiest days. It was not flashy or exciting but it was MINE. It was a day on the calendar promised to “the corporation,” an entity unable to appreciate the value of a a rare rainy day, the importance of an unfinished book, the desire to be free of all of the demands and restrictions placed on a life and have one day to just BE.

The lesson I am learning from all of this is, it is ok to NOT be ok. It is ok to take a time out because your head is pounding or your heart is racing or you are just extra tired or just extra “awake” and you would like to direct that energy inward rather than outward.

Your hours, your days, your life belong to YOU and it is ok to reclaim and take one back every once in a while.

It is ok to click your heals, pull the covers back over your head and proclaim “There’s no place like home.”