Date night conversations.

Have you ever heard someone say, they lost themselves after children?

They lost their relationship, it’s always about the kids…

They are basically two roommates living in the same house, taking care of children together.

So they plan date nights.

We’re gonna get it back, they say.

We use to be so fun, and spontaneous.

We’d talk on the phone for hours, and make each other laugh.

Had inside jokes even.

Then, when they get to date night.

Sitter, Nana or Mimi, comes to the rescue to watch the heathens.

Dress up, look your best.

Get ready to spend an obnoxious amount of your hard earned money on cocktails and dinner.

Sit down at dinner, and what’s the conversation about?

The kids.

Work.

Plans coming up.

All the normal stuff.

Did you get it back?

I’m probably gonna hurt some feelings here, but I’m not exactly sure what everyone is expecting.

But, what do you want to talk to your husband about?

Do you want to discuss astrology?

Perhaps, the state of the economy?

Maybe the new species of lizards found in 2022?

My gosh.

Is it impossible to understand that at one time, long ago, you lived two separate lives? You had friends that weren’t joint friends.

You had jobs and didn’t come home at the end of the day TO EACH OTHER and tell every little thing that happened.

There would be days between when you saw each other… and those days would be filled with different parts of your lives that you didn’t share.

So now that you’re 5 years in, 8 years, 14 years, or even way longer…

however many kids, and hundreds of days spent coming home to one another, sharing the same (at least merged) friends groups and families…

now that you’re here…

Your topics of conversation are of things you spend your time doing.

And y’all, so many of us are parents, growing a family. I don’t know about you, but that legit takes up all of my freaking time.

So forgive me, if I want to spend time looking into my husband’s eyes with his undivided attention and tell him all about a recipe my best friend tried last week and the girl’s next holiday outfits!

I don’t see any harm in it.

Is it boring? Yeah. Are there more exciting things to talk about? Of course.

We go through the motions at home y’all.

A lot of times we are passing.

We’re looking at phones.

We’re pulled here and there by children and friendships, and work.

So.

In my opinion, it just doesn’t feel the same telling him these exact same things, while being interrupted by a dog stealing a chicken tender off the girl’s plate, or over the rather loud background noise of our ‘seems-like-it’s-always-on’ tv, or running out the door to make school pickup on time.

And yes.

We do get quiet time at home, after the kids make 5 million announcements on Alexa to get them goldfish and tell on each other for getting out of bed…

That quiet time is reserved for sitting the fuck down.

No one ask me for anything else, time, to sit down.

Maybe have a cocktail, and watch a show because that’s all we’re able to do for ourselves today.

I prefer being so comfortable with how we’ve formed our lives together, that it doesn’t bother me, if our topic of conversation at dinner is…. our life.

Because I love it.

We made it.

And I don’t know about y’all, but I never look across the table and wish it was any other way than exactly how it is.

Any conversation I have with him is a conversation worth having. I’m proud of where life has taken us…

I’m proud of where we’ve been.

But, I don’t want those conversations we once had …. I’m not looking back.

Just across the table, at him.