Eleven Years

This weekend Shane (The Man) and I snuck off for the night. Okay, we didn't really sneak off, we ran hootin and hollerin with glee, to a bed and breakfast in a historic, and now trendy, district of Atlanta. I started this post there, typing on a computer as antique as the rest of the furnishings while Shane was still in bed, sleeping off a late night.

Friday was my wedding anniversary and Shane and I were fortunate to find a sucker big enough to come spend the night with our four children. The sucker, or saint actually, was my mother-in-law. God Bless her. It was our first time away from our children overnight in two-and-a-half years. Except when we slipped off to deliver Clara, but the atmosphere in those women's centers is decidedly unromantic. We left our cozy suburb with it's mega malls, chain restaurants and respectable school districts and headed into the city.

We treated ourselves to an obscenely expensive dinner. I mean seriously, I think we could have fed a child in Africa for a year on what we spent on dinner. We used our Am Ex. points and I still felt a little guilty about the extravagance of it all. But the food. Oh my. The food was divine.

Then we headed back to the district to walk around to the shops and pubs of the young and hip. We found out we were neither. I could not make myself enter the blues bar, the Irish pub, or the live-band karaoke club with standing room only and people vying for the attention of bartenders and the opposite sex. Instead we settled at a half-full tequila bar known for it's margaritas, where we drank a little and talked a lot.

About our children.

Oh we didn't miss them exactly. 24 hours away wasn't long enough for that. But as we talked about our dreams, our frustrations, our fascination with the diversity of city life, they needled their way in to every conversation. It turns out that for all our excitement at leaving it behind, we genuinely like the life we have built together.

We had a wonderful time this weekend, living the life of the young and childless and savoring each other's company like some kind of exotic treat. And I was so thankful that after eleven years I am married to a man that I not only love, but genuinely like. Who makes me laugh, who puts me first, who still thinks I am beautiful. And that somehow, despite the chaos of our life, despite days in a row without having a real conversation, despite sometimes feeling like we live in different worlds, we still couldn't imagine weathering the storm with anyone else.

And as we headed home the next day, putting back on the mantle of our responsibilities, and knowing full well how blessed we were by the life we were returning too, I still couldn't help but long for a little more time to just be a girl in love.

"Into my heart's treasury I slipped a coin that time cannot take nor a thief purloin" ~ Sara Teasdale