Date Night

My hubby of 25 years and I go out each week for "Date Night." This is a time for just the two of us to reconnect with each other and escape from the world. There is no TV, no Internet, no phones, no people, just the two of us. Sometimes we do something interesting, but most of the time our adventures are pretty tame....dinner out, then a shopping trip to Wal-Mart for dog food and toilet paper. Woo Hoo! Exciting stuff.

Whatever we end up doing, we do it together and that's the important part. We talk about how our day went, what bothers us, what we found funny. We talk non-stop. We hold hands. We nuzzle and give each other little kisses in the check-out line at Wal-Mart. (Don't gag here, it's really very romantic.)

Tonight we decided to eat dinner at a restaurant in the neighboring town, about a 40-minute drive. En route hubby commented, "You know, I miss visiting your mother." I was surprised at this revelation. Most men don't really enjoy visits with the mother-in-law, much less miss them. I replied, "I'm sure I can find us a little old lady to visit who lives halfway across the state. She would probably be tickled to death to see us." [Sidenote: My mother was in poor health for two years before she passed away and we visited her every third weekend. The trip was an arduous trek of 1.5 hours each way over bad roads, then later, after she moved to assisted living, the trip was three hours each way.] He said, "It's not the visiting I miss, it's the trip. I got to be with you six hours during the drive....just us."

Wow!

That comment made me realize that after Mom died last Christmas, I was all too happy to stay holed up in my little house and go nowhere and see no one. We had spent far too much of our lives over the past two years driving around the backroads of Arkansas and home sounded like a great place to be. Unfortunately, our little nest has far too many comfortable distractions for us as individuals. We don't take the time to be "us" as a couple when we're there. That's Not A Good Thing.

So, this spring Date Night will be observed in a neighboring county. We will try all the little hole-in-the-wall restaurants Lower Arkansas has to offer. We may even drive two counties away. If my baby wants to spend time with me in the car, who am I to deny him that togetherness?