Time is something that seems to be in short supply, even when things are more relaxed. In the summer, I felt like I didn't have the time to enjoy the season, and now that school has started again, I feel like I'm drowning in all the things I can't do even though I want to, and the things I should be doing even though I don't want to.
So John and I decided to make the time for each other this weekend. We always have excuses, we always have something that needs doing, we always have a life we have to keep up with an obligations to fulfill. However, the actual day of our anniversary this year was pretty dreadful, and we got into one of the largest fights we have ever had, and the next day we were heartsore and weary. Neither of us felt good in our skin. We looked at each other with this hopeless kind of shrugging sadness, and I knew I had to do something to save this year for us.. it's been such a hard one, we've been through so much, we've fought for every bit of happiness we were able to scratch out, and I wasn't going to let the weekend go by without fixing it,even if it cost us a little bit of money we felt guilty for spending.
So, the deal we were supposed to have in the San Juans (a free 2 night stay at a hotel/spa) fell through when my boss at the lab couldn't get ahold of the friend with the hotel. After the fight, we didn't know if we should even bother... but I decided for us. I got on a vacation rental website, I looked for things in a cheap price point, and I started emailing.
This was the place that responded to us The Cozy Conch Cottage in Birch Bay. We got here just a little after dark on Friday night, ran to the new fancy schmancy grocery store called "The Market" and bought: $8 goat cheese, $5 fancy crackers, non-pariel chocolates, mixer for our black cherry vodka, a $7 beer for John, and some other little things that are silly and made us feel like we actually have the money to be eating cheese that costs $8 on $5 crackers. We got drunk and played Scrabble, and John kicked my ass.
See? See the masterful pout? I've worked for years to hone this, you know.
Today, we slept in. John made a delicious breakfast, and coffee from my shop that Jonathan ground and wrote "coffee for romance" on the bag, drawn with a little arrow with a heart through it. John read his book, I did some homework, and we took a long afternoon walk to the beach and out to the state park in the blustery day.
I love how most of our vacation pictures are pics of John and I like this, pictures like this one, of John looking absolutely adorable,
and then awful pictures of me that I can't even post. I don't know what the hell he does, but John isn't capable of taking good pictures of me. At all. Ever. Every pic he has of me, my mouth is open, or my eyes or closed, or both, or I look like I smell something horrid.
We came home and read some more, I took a nap on John's lap while he worked on his book, and we eventually went and grabbed potstickers and spring rolls for dinner. We played a game of Cribbage, something I actually CAN win.
We mostly just spent the weekend connecting. Ry and his girlfriend Nikki are staying in our house with two of our dogs and Trish and Poo have Dex for the weekend. We never really focus on our marriage, focus on what is important to us and what drives us, focus on what our strengths are and what we need to work on. After our huge fight last week, it was about time to reaffirm why we do this, why we are in this relationship, and how we can continue to grow it so that we still want to be in it this time next year, and the year after that.
This time away from home gives me time to remember what matters to me, and to remind me to take the time for myself in my own life. Being somewhere I can smell the beach and think about my future reminds me to live my life in a way that supports the kind of future I want to see myself living. Being with John, without the dogs and the phone calls and the constant connection to his computer, really reminds me why we like to be out and about, holding hands, talking about experiences rather than what we read or what we watched or what someone else said.
Tomorrow we go back to our life, and our dogs. John and I are excited to go pick Dexter up and to go home and hug Bigby and Noella, and so be back in our own home. We're only 30 or so miles away, and it feels silly, somehow, to be "on vacation" when it takes me less than 25 minutes to get to my house from here, but it's far enough away that we both managed to feel a bit removed, and that's what we wanted.
No comments:
Post a Comment