Wednesday Musings: Mr. C & Me {Ten Year Anniversary}

Dear Friends,
   It’s official.  I have been married for a decade.  I’m cool with that but I’m just not sure where all those years went.  The first five are memorable.  The last five?  A bit of a blur.  Two moves and two kids might play a role.

To celebrate we escaped the children and hopped on a jet plane to Maine.  We hadn’t had an official “trip” since Lacey was two.  We almost bailed at the first of the month.  We made the plans in January but it suddenly seemed too difficult.  Too tough to leave work for Mr. C.  Too scary to leave the kids for me.  Too sandwiched in between other summer travel and obligations.  Too many what-ifs.

But we came to our senses.

The kids spent two nights with my parents and two nights with Mr. C’s parents and everyone stayed here in Charlotte.  Dividing the time ensures that nobody gets overwhelmed.  The two little people plus an aging dog with bladder issues are a lot to leave behind.

This is the post where I talk about our anniversary.  Mr. C & I needed that time.  That irreplaceable one- on- one slice of sanity.  Mr. C is a good man.  Solid, with a moral compass the size of Texas.  And a sense of humor as juvenile as mine.

But dealing with me at the end of the day can be like fishing in a dry creek-bed.  My energy and humor have dwindled to an unmeasurable trickle.

We needed time to just be.  To soak up what makes us work so well.  That bottom line that makes us giddy.

Oh,  And traveling without children?  It has been awhile.

The airport?  A cinch.  If Mr. C wants to fumble with his belt and shoes it’s no skin off my back.  I’m not trying to get myself and two kids plus a stroller through security.  Ahem.

The drive?  Oh, there is traffic.  Oh well.  More time to listen to the radio.  No white knuckles necessary.

Dinner?  There is a wait?  Lovely.  We’ll take our buzzer to the bench by the bay.  That sure beats our usual eyes-only conversation that involves an I-told-you-so.  Because I’m a little slow, you know.

At the beginning of the year,  I was polling friends on destinations.  Aruba, Jamaica, and Puerto Rico were popular suggestions.   The escape to an island resort was tempting.  But it just isn’t what either of us was really looking for.  Consuming a novel by a pool with an umbrella drink should be nirvana.  But I was envisioning myself reading on a big porch in a small town.  With an iced coffee.  Walking to get dinner.

You can talk soul-mates all day long when your teen years are only an exit back in the rear-view mirror.  It is romance personified.  I mean, we just “got” each other, you know?  At thirty-something, it seems a little more abstract.  A soul-mate might look more like a figure washing dishes than someone who gets me.

I needed the reminder that Mr. C  is my soul-mate. Because what other man would be as happy as I was to tour random towns in New England? Our days were filled with wandering, relaxing and restaurant seeking.  Added bonuses? A decent dessert, and down-time.

Work peeked through here and there.  But I’ve come to expect that.  I even took care of a little blog business to pass the time.

The best part? We spent two nights at a B& B.  Told you Mr. C was my soul-mate.  It was something out of Gilmore Girls.  A years worth of funny.   Whenever I need a good laugh, I can think back to our bumbling host.

Ten years is a long time.  I’ll raise you ten more, Mr. C.  I like them odds.