y mom comes into my room every morning at 8am. “I hope I’m not waking you up.”

“You’re not waking me up,” I say, waking up. I’m embarrassed that my mother and I often go to bed at the same time—11pm, after Letterman—and yet she wakes with the roosters while I occasionally start my day with lunch.

“I wondered if I could make you some tea or coffee?” she says, nudging open my door. Correction: THE door. This is not my bedroom. It is the guest room of the home my parents moved into after I graduated, an odd medley of my old stuffed animals, my brother’s trophies, and my mother’s sewing supplies.

“No thanks,” I say, hoping she will leave soon enough that I drift, seamlessly, back into the dream I was just having.

“Would you like orange juice or grapefruit juice?”

“No.”

“Can I make you some eggs?”

“Mom!” I say the word like it contains four syllables. “Can’t you see I’m sleeping?”

“Oh, I’m so sorry.” She disappears, embarrassed. She will be back in an hour.

The worst part about living with your parents is that no matter how old you are—how accomplished, how mature--you begin act the same way you did last time you lived with your parents. Spoiled, entitled, lazy--17 years old again, without the killer waistline.

I’ve been living here for three weeks, ever since I moved out of my boyfriend’s house. (Ex-boyfriend’s house. That one’s gonna take a while.) My parents are gracious enough to let me stay in their modest 2-bedroom home, to include me in their dinner plans, to buy me sushi when I’m down. And yet, I find myself impatient with them. We’re having chicken again? Don’t you guys ever get tired of Seinfeld? How come everyone keeps trying to make me breakfast in bed?!?? Gawwww.

Oftentimes, I need to stay out late for work. (Sometimes, I’m just at a bar. Shhh.) This baffles my parents, who don’t understand why anyone needs to do anything after 11pm besides clipping their toenails and applying a mud mask.

“You’re going where?” asks my dad, already in bed at 9pm.

“I have to interview someone at a bar.”

“At a bar?” he asks, as though it’s an illegal activity.

“He’s a musician. He’s going to be in this bar, and I need to interview him there.”

“Is this a safe bar?”

No, Dad. It’s a biker bar filled with rapists and people who don't recycle. “I’m 30 years old,” I remind him.

“That doesn’t mean we don’t still care.”

I take a deep breath. “I know. But do you have to be so paranoid?”

The thing is, he does. Anxiety and paranoia are time-honored Hepola traditions. What would we do with all our nervous, creative energy if we weren't indulging bloody worst-case scenarios in our head? Mom’s late from work—maybe she died in a car accident. Dad missed dinner—do you think was he torn apart by tigers? It doesn’t help that my parents watch all those ridiculous Primetime specials about the hidden dangers of the supermarket, the environment, the laundry, the dog food. It’s feeds all their 60-something fear and suspicion about the world we live in. My mother once found me eating a veggie sandwich with alfalfa sprouts. “Oh God, no!” she said, as though I’d just swallowed a bottle of pills. “Those could kill you!”

So, in the end, we simply put up with each other. They learn to accept my occasional late hours; I learn to call when I’m not coming home after work. “Because we worry,” my mom explains, offering a grilled cheese sandwich. It is something of a sacrifice. But man: Her grilled cheese sandwiches are delicious.