There are places a man carves out in life that are supposed to be sacred: a throne room, a fortress of solitude, a quiet wedge of time between dish duty and sock-matching. Mine was the garage. Not the two-car jumble of stuff—my new garage retreat. A chair that hugs your spine like it knows your sins. A desk where cables behave. A reading nook whispering “peace.” A board-game table that demanded adult conversation. This wasn’t storage; it was a manifesto.
Enter Moira.
She’s two, sweet, slightly feral, and loud enough to rattle the drywall. She burst in like the Kool-Aid Man wearing a tutu and the subtlety of a marching band. For an hour she treated my “sanctuary” like an Olympic venue—sprinting, flopping, giggling, and inventing new ways to demonstrate that proximity is love. Then she discovered I was trying to read.
Normal toddler closeness is not a thing in her vocabulary. She perched at my elbow like a small goblin, breathing directly into my personal bubble and performing what I can only describe as an elbow taste-test—lick. Lick. Lick.
I adore that kid, but I’ll swear on my DeWalt tool set: one more lick and I was Googling whether super-glue counts as temporary custody. At the very least a super glue infused time out! (I did not glue anyone. The thought is my therapy.)
She almost did get a craft-project–adjacent glove the night before, though. While I searched for an extension cord, she found a glob Play-Doh and waved it like she’d discovered fire. Jo wandered in, watched the chaos, and deadpanned, “She’s testing the structural integrity of your patience. Looks like it’s failing inspection.”
That’s the rub right there: there is no retreat. Your “man-cave” is just another jungle gym with better mood lighting. You can outfit it with ergonomic chairs and tasteful shelving, but if you have kids, it will double as the free daycare of the home improvement world.
Eventually Moira settled—briefly—next to me, whispered some made-up toddler poetry, gave my elbow one last audit-lick, and sprinted off yelling “MIO MAO!” into the void, leaving a trail of tiny footsteps and approximately three hundred unresolved nuts-and-bolts.
Conclusion: my next retreat will be soundproof. And in another county.
hope today is a secluded one,
austininva
