It’s a Monday, and that’s a pretty busy day in my household this school year. Everybody shuffles off the weekend, Valerie and I each had early meetings, and the kids will have swimming this evening. That means I'll be off in the Southside with them for a few hours while Valerie changes out their warm weather/cool weather clothing at home.
Oh yeah, and it’s our 19th wedding anniversary.
We had our anniversary dinner this past Saturday, so we got a date night, sure. But it’s still a slight bummer to me that we can't make more of our actual anniversary. So it goes at this stage of life with two kids in elementary school. We talked, in fact, during our date, about what we might do for 20 years in 2024. And you know what? We may not get to do much. Westerners love our significant round numbers, but we don't have easy access to reliable family babysitting for multiple nights. That means we’ll be lucky if we even get away for a short jaunt within a few hours of Wilmington, where my mother-in-law lives.
I sure am happy to continue my marriage with Valerie and I love my kids, but I sure do look forward to when they're old enough that my wife and I can go have some more husband and wife fun on our own from time to time.
You know what, though? That’s one of the fascinating things about my extended partnership with Valerie: it’s not that the importance of the anniversary date has diminished. It is, rather, that we get to keep sharing these regular days together, year after year. With the kids, without the kids, but always with each other.