Everything is romantic when it’s new.
A boyfriend or girlfriend, setting out on your own for the first time, the start up business in a garage, and the having a baby bump for the first time are all romantic. Also the “remember back in the early days when it was just us…” is mandatory romanticism.
But then things get old, or maybe just older, and if we are not careful
we lose the plot.
The most dangerous of these is probably with love.
When we see couples eating nervously together at restaurants, Sheri and I love to ad lib what they are saying to each other. We then get a little romantic and start thinking back on the days when we were first together. “Remember the First Apartment? The one with the terrible neighbor and the too thin walls?” And we laugh. Usually awkwardly too loud.
Being newlyweds in love was amazing. Everything was new and exciting and stressful and…romantic.
And now several years later with two little blond streaks of energy added to our family, I always had thought it would be different. It would be old by now. Sheri and I have played house for a long time and I thought I would be so used to it.
But then I have a night like tonight.
Sheri got home and forgot to pick up “something” at the store. So I headed out and found myself in the middle of the pharmacy. I was studying a picture on my phone and comparing it to the items on the shelf to make sure I got just the right one. “No, that’s not the right one, it has the wrong color on the box.” Then I found it and grabbed not just the little box, but two of the big ones. I had found the prize and now walk to the front to purchase the two value pack size boxes of…tampons.
As I walked to the front, the store PA system was softly playing a song whose chorus was “Oh! the things we do for love…” Not. Even. Lying.
Of course I had to text Sheri as soon as I realized it. We like dumb stuff like that.
But the whole thing was very romantic.
Last night, I came home from work and both kids had been fed, washed, roughhoused with, loved on, tucked in bed and kissed goodnight. I walked into a peaceful house after an unusually late night to a wife that sat on the couch and talked with me about both our days.
Super romantic.
I had a short lived delusion as a soon be married man that I was going to be able to makeout and have the sex on the couch all day long after I tied the knot. Then I got hitched and realized I would literally die/lose my job if I did that. I get to still (we have two kids ;), but that is not all that romance is. The movies are lies. That is all cheap, swap meet bootleg romance. The real thing is so much, well, more.
Goodbye kisses before the family all leaves to different places in the morning. Adventures in raising semi-normal children. Laughing at each other. Reading devotions. Making inside jokes. Saying normal phrases in deep voices, “Oh, I will pass you the mail…” Working on the house. Family walks. Making a budget. Realizing you both walked into the room humming your kid’s favorite show’s theme song (which you both hate like crazy!) Sitting on the couch together while watching a movie. Unspoken contests to see who will cave first and empty the bathroom trash. Dates to Target.
And buying tampons.
I don’t know why I was given Her, but I am grateful.
Chasing The Wild Beast 