We had a doghouse when I was a kid, but it wasn't for the dog.There was a tiny room at the back of our mission home, originally built to house a live-in servant who came in on Sundays and stayed through Friday afternoons before going to her home on the weekend. When our servant, Cecilia, died of cancer, we got a new servant who lived close enough to travel to and from home every day. The servant's room was now freed up for other uses.
My dad decided to turn the old servant's room into a getaway room, which he dubbed "The Doghouse." We added a bunk bed and a TV to the room, along with a chair or two and our set of encyclopedias (for reading during commercials, which were boring in Malaysia). There was only an hour or two of English programming every evening on TV, so we weren't in much danger of becoming addicted. But many evenings found various groups of kids gathered to watch some program: Hawaii Five-O, The Waltons, the Wonderful World of Disney, etc. If the program was really popular, kids were squished shoulder-to-shoulder on the bunks and sometimes two shared a chair.
It was a good place to get away into another world that made whatever was happening in your real life seem small. Arguments were few in the doghouse. You could be goofy there, build friendships there, and learn a few things from the book you were reading in between times. The best was when there weren't so many people, and you could lie down on one of the bunks and just get lost in either reading or watching.
A getaway spot is crucial for mental health, be it a literal place bounded by walls or hills, or a space in time that is all yours, uninterrupted by "real life" for a little while. You don't have to be alone, but it must be a place that is "away." And you would be the one who knows what that means.
Everyone needs a Doghouse.
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