Home at Last: The Great Unpeeling

Well, normality has returned.

We’ve made it through the first proper week of September routine, which means alarms have returned, diaries have suddenly become important again and apparently we’re all expected to know what day it is.

Bit ambitious, but fine.

And yet there is one part of daily life that never seems to change.

Coming home.

More specifically, coming home, closing the door behind you and thinking:

Right. Get this lot OFF me.

There is something wonderfully instinctive about it.

Shoes first.

Then whatever else has spent the day clinging to you.

Something gets dropped by the door.

Something else makes it halfway across the room. Another item inexplicably ends up on the stairs despite nobody remembering taking it off there.

By the time you reach wherever you were actually going, you’re naked, comfortable and there’s a breadcrumb trail of clothing behind you marking your precise route through the house.

Home at last.

And yes, technically, I suppose we could remove everything neatly, fold it and put it where it belongs.

Hahahahahahaha.

Sorry.

For us, there’s an especially glorious moment when the last irritating bit comes off.

You know the one. That little sigh when your body suddenly realises it doesn’t have to negotiate with elastic, straps, waistbands, seams or anything else for the rest of the evening.

Freedom.

Actually, why do we sigh when we take clothes off?

Is that universal?

I’ve just tried doing it deliberately and now I’m standing naked in the bedroom making strange sighing noises in the interests of journalism.

This job is very demanding.

Where was I?

Clothes.

Or, preferably, the lack of them.

That’s one of the things I love about naturism at home. There’s no performance involved. No occasion. No special preparation and certainly no dramatic announcement that I SHALL NOW BE A NATURIST.

You just get home and get comfortable.

That’s it.

The outside world gets our clothes.

Home gets us.

And I think there’s something rather lovely about that distinction.

We spend so much of our lives dressed for other places and other people. Work clothes.

Going-out clothes. Sensible clothes. Weather-appropriate clothes. Clothes that apparently need ironing, although I remain unconvinced that anybody has ever genuinely benefited from an ironed T-shirt.

Then you close your own front door and none of it matters anymore.

The body gets to simply exist.

No pinching. No adjusting. No wondering whether something has ridden up, fallen down, twisted sideways or somehow migrated into a part of your anatomy it was absolutely not invited to visit.

Just skin.

Just home.

Just you.

There’s something about that which feels like a tiny daily reset.

And perhaps that’s why getting naked when we arrive home can feel so disproportionately wonderful. It isn’t really about taking our clothes off at all.

It’s about taking the day off.

The responsibilities don’t disappear, obviously.

Dinner still needs sorting.

Things still need doing.

And the clothing you enthusiastically abandoned on your journey through the house will eventually require collecting.

Usually by whichever poor soul has finally had enough of stepping over it.

But for that first little moment?

Bliss.

The door is shut.

The outside world can wait.

Everything restrictive has been peeled away and your whole body seems to say:

Ahhhhhh. Home.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, there are two odd socks sitting halfway up the stairs.

They don’t match.

Nobody knows who they belong to.

And neither of them was there this morning.

I have questions.

Are you a “clothes off the second I get home” person too — and, more importantly, how far does your trail of abandoned clothing usually reach?