A weekend break

We have just returned from two nights away.  Our son and daughter-in-law gave us two nights at a hotel as a gift for letting them live here.  It was my husband’s birthday, so we were able to celebrate a bit with them.  It was nice to get away, even just into the city.  Now we are home, and trying to get some work done around the house.

Being away gave us quite a bit of down time and time to reflect on our lives.  We have discussed many times how much we love our children and love each other.  But it has been 30 years that we have been married, and we dated several years before that.  The love is different…..better?  It certainly is not based on hormones now.  I will admit here that I find him remarkably annoying at times, and I am sure he feels the same about me as well. We even discuss that. 

We ended up together by default, really.  The kind of marriage that the relatives bet wouldn’t last.  I was pregnant.  In the late seventies, that was still a bit tawdry, especially in my small town.  We were always short of money.  I was in school and worked full time, and had small children.  My mother has commented several times that she never thought we could do it.  She pretty much figured that he would bail on me. 

 But he didn’t.  And we made it.

Now, here we are, each getting into our later 50s, trying to figure out what we want to be when we grow up. After my sister’s unexpected death, every birthday is now a gift rather than a joke about growing old.  I will take every birthday that I am given. I don’t want to waste this life.

Although both my husband and I are tired of our jobs, we are not ready to retire.  We have looked for other jobs-but really-who would hire us at this point?  We are considering a relocation, but are just in the beginning stages of that. 

As we considered our lives, and our love, over a weekend break from the day-to-day of our lives, we had no big epiphany.  It was more of a big sigh, and we headed back to get on with things. 

Together.

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