Month: November 2017

Year 3, Week 22: Honeymooners

I heard it frequently when we got married: “Enjoy this, because it’ll be over soon.”

And I kept wondering what the “it” was – the magic that surrounds a new marriage? The romantic gestures that Cody has performed since we started dating? The hope of looking forward to an exceptional future together?

Over time, I deduced that these people were talking about the primal, almost naive instincts of young love.

You know what it is: when your butterflies keep you from creating a coherent sentence, or you count down the hours until you get to be with your person again.

Cody and I were already in a serious relationship when I was 17, so the combination of my still-developing brain and teenage hormones made it quite interesting to explore a maturing partnership while navigating how to stay up late to get in as much Skype time as possible.

It was a very fatalistic perspective they suggested, and I’m not one for throwing in the towel so soon.

After this week, I’m firm in my stance that the “honeymoon” stage of your relationship can certainly come back. You just need to change things up.

Cody and I agreed that we’d switch every-other-year between staying in Chicago and traveling to Arkansas for the Thanksgiving holidays.

The first year we were married, we spent Thanksgiving in Chicago, so we decided to take a little road-trip to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, for a free one-night stay using a Hotel.com promotion. Long story short, it was just the get-away we didn’t know we needed. We spent hours in the pool and hot tub, reading and chatting between chapters about what our future could look like. It was actually during this conversation that I became serious about being a novelist. We had a beautiful dinner at the Baker House. We walked along the lake. The hotel we stayed in was loosely occupied. It was wonderful. We didn’t have to spend lots of money, and the experience was one we’ll never forget.

This year, we decided to do something similar. I had many gift cards for restaurants and a voucher for a one-night stay at a downtown hotel, so I booked our room that Monday and we hopped on the train that Friday afternoon.

We knew we had a 9pm dinner reservation that night, so we needed something to hold us over in the meantime. We bought fast-food chicken, walked along the river until we found a place we could picnic (it wasn’t cold compared to what it could be at this time of year!), had fun acting fancy with fluffy robes and super-downy beds, swimming, and watching a movie all before dinner at Nacional 27.

At 17, we weren’t eating fancy meals at a five-star establishment along the riverfront. Instead, we embraced fast food and pretty views for cheap. To return to this aspect of our relationship did wonders to set the mood for the rest of the 24-hour getaway.

We danced and laughed so much that, by the next morning, I found I couldn’t look him in the eye. I felt nervous. At one point in between bites at breakfast (also covered by the hotel voucher – score!), Cody asked me what I was thinking. I struggled for an answer, so I shrugged. My intelligent brain was mush, finding its roots in the memories of 17 year-old Ania. How could I articulate that this, right here, was the most sophisticated we had gotten all weekend and I wanted to do was go back to our room and joke about things only we laugh at in our stupidly fluffy robes. I couldn’t, so I just smiled and said, “This is really nice.”

So when people say things like your marriage will never be as sweet and fun as it is right now, they’re wrong.

Love is as sweet and spontaneous and wonderful as you make it. To be anything less is to be missing out, big time. Make time to be young kids again. I promise it’s worth it.

Year 3, Week 19: New Routines & Routine Affection

Cody was offered an amazing job located in Palo Alto, California, with the promise that he can work remotely and (with some conditions, of course) travel/live abroad. I am so excited for this change, mostly because he had started falling prey to “living half asleep” (see Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom)- coming home visibly uneasy and agitated, trying to find other things to keep him enthused, or simply subscribing to the idea that this was how life needed to be right now.

But I knew better. And, at the end of the day, so did he.

I will not allow Cody to be bogged down by the sadness of the world – how else will he help keep my own positivity afloat? Less self-servingly, though, I believe in my husband’s intelligence and zest for life too much to watch him surrender that joy to earn money that we can’t take with us when we go anyway (here he’ll argue that he’s creating a legacy for our family, blahblahblah. It’s not wrong; I’m just different).

I promised to love him in good times and bad – but I’m also allowed to show him when he’s in a bad time and help love him out of it.

Cody spent the last two weeks in California for his orientation. Thankfully, we’ve had practice in the Ways of Long-Distance Relationships.

For those who aren’t familiar, here are
The Basics of Long-Distance Relationships
– Send a morning email to wish him well. Did you forget? Look at that, he owns a computer, too. With 2 hours difference between y’all, he picked up the slack.
– Continue on with your day. Get it, gurl.
– Ya gotta schedule a mid-day call. Check in. Say “hello,” “I love you,” and “Keep gettin’ ’em, tiger.”
– Live your independent daydreams. You’ll have more to talk about if you’re each doing your own thing(s) to the best of your abilit(ies).
– Good night video chat. Laugh, blow kisses, and fall asleep feeling loved.

Incredibly, it worked out that both of our best friends (ie our Maid of Honor and Best Man) were in San Francisco as well! I booked incredibly priced plane tickets and join them out there. It was perfect. When I was in San Francisco, I loved that he was more affectionate than ever. Or maybe I was just noticing it more.

And now, with him back home, I can’t stop appreciating the small gestures: a grazed neck with gentle fingertips here, a bear hug from behind there, and hugs that last as long as it takes.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder, but I don’t think it’s a miracle that our relationship feels stronger than before – we put in the work while we were apart. It’s hard to fall apart when you keep showing up.

And I suppose that’s Marriage 101. Build a routine and have routine affection.