My kids are back at school today after a four-day weekend. Four and a half if you count the fact that they had a halfday on Thursday. Friday was some teacher inservice thing, and then they had President's Day off. Normally, four day weekends screw me over because they totally disrupt my routine - not that I have much of one, but my obsessive self craves one as much as possible - but this weekend wasn't as big a deal.
See, the hubby and I had our first Valentine's date in years. We dropped the kids off at a friends on Friday afternoon, then drove down to San Jose for dinner, a concert, and a night at a hotel. Before we left, he cut me off from technology. No laptop. No texting on the phone to Pepper. He caved when we were sitting through the boring opening act and lent me his Blackberry to email her, but other than that, it was just him and me. Sooooooo relaxing. There is no person on this planet who knows me as well as he does. Pepper comes a close second, but he wins for sheer longevity and proximity. Last night, I uttered a single word and he read my complete thought process, which was far more than that single word, lol.
We used to have date nights for more often, but that got curbed when we moved back to the US. We live in California now, where I don't have any family, and we didn't have any friends. But I think we're going to bring them back. Somehow. They were an excellent way to reconnect, to just spend time together without worrying about the kids. They were also a great way for us to discover some new things, like restaurants and places. Before we got married, we used to just take off for the weekend. Pick a direction and drive. No plans, no expectations. That kind of spontaneity was one of the things that glued us together.
The New York Times had an article last week about reinventing date nights for long-married couples. We haven't been married for as long as the study subjects, but I know this makes perfect sense to me. Isn't some of that rush why we read romances? We're looking for those tastes of the rush? I think so. I think it explains why my reading drops when I'm in an upswing on my marriage. And why it skyrockets when he's wrapped up in work and I don't get to see him.
What do you think?
1 comment:
My hubby and I only survived raising twin boys because both my mom and mil would spring us twice a month for our date night. It didn't have to be anything fancy, some days we were too exhausted to form sentences, lol. But it definitely kept us both sane.
Post a Comment