Fortress of Solitude

I have no words of inspiration today, I just feel like writing. I'm looking forward to tomorrow. I'm going to go to chapel for real this time and listen to a great Jim Boyce sermon, get some Jesus, listen in on Paulson's Confessions class, eat some lunch with friends and then hit the road. I'm heading down to my parent's house because I have an early doctors appointment on Thursday morning.
There is a reason I go down to my parent's on Sundays or Mondays depending on when I have to work now. It is my fortress of solitude. It gives me a chance to process the events of the past week, take it easy, relax, and allow myself to gear up for the coming week. I haven't gotten to do that yet this week and I'm beginning to feel bogged down by it. It doesn't even matter if my mom and dad are home. In fact, I like to come home to an empty house and watch old episodes of Beverly Hills 90210 after I've watched General Hospital, my soap. I sit around and watch crappy cable TV until mom comes home and then we watch an episode of Law and Order together. My own personal fortress of solitude.
It is not the same sitting in my apartment alone. Here I don't have crappy cable TV to watch and there are too many distractions. Both good distractions like friends calling me up to hang out, and bad distractions, like the demons coming out to play, but distractions nonetheless. I need to feel the peace and quiet that I feel when I'm down at my parent's. I don't know why, it's just something I need.
Sadly though, going down to the parental units tomorrow takes away from valuable time I could be spending with friends who are leaving soon to continue on their life's journey. This saddens me. But I wouldn't be too much fun to be around anyway without some time spent at my fortress of solitude to recoop and gather myself again. Sometimes when I don't get to the fortress of solitude for a while, I find myself losing my grasp on what is important and what is not so important in life.
My fortress of solitude allows me to refocus my priorities, to read and listen to the word, to feel the Holy Spirit working in my life in ways I never expected, to remember that it is not up to me, to remember to hand myself over to Christ and let go of all the piddly things that have been bothering me, or things I can't control. I need time in the fortress of solitude and tomorrow I will be able to go there and begin to feel at peace again.