The other night Tim and I watched a movie on television while I worked and he read pieces of a book he's been into lately. It was a chick-flick, and it followed all the normal predictable standards, but it still kept us both laughing, and I found myself reaching over to hold Tim's hand a few times just because watching couples fall in love always reminds me how hard I fell for Tim in the beginning.
Falling in love is magical. I knew there was potential to fall in love with Tim after our second phone call. He had this calmness about him that I craved, and he had a way of making me laugh until my cheeks hurt. Dating him and falling in love with him was one of the best times of my life. My only regret is that we didn't date longer, and not because dating him longer would've changed our end result, but because the magic of the falling in love fades so quickly when bills, diapers and decisions take over.
Before I continue, I want to be clear that there is still plenty of magic between us (if you don't believe me, you should've heard us giggling late into the night the other day). But most days we don't have the chance to hold hands as often as we'd like because our hands are always filled with other things--namely children, and we don't have the chance to flirt as often as we'd like because we're often interrupted by the kids needing our attention.
After the movie ended, I told Tim how much I missed that "falling in love" feeling. I wish we could go back and recreate our first kiss or the first time we said I love you to each other or all the fun, timeless dates we had. We laughed about how dating is so weird now because our date starts after 15 minutes of instructions to babysitters about chocolate milk, brushing teeth, diapers, etc....how romantic. ;) We don't have the luxury of staying out late because most of our babysitters like to be home around 10, and even if we could stay out late, we'd probably fall asleep on each other in some movie aisle or corner booth because of our early morning wake up calls.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again, I don't really know how most marriages survive parenting, but somehow a high percentage do. It's pretty amazing. I long to date my husband without time limits. I want to kiss him without being interrupted by children. I want him to be able to open my door all the time like he used to without having children climbing up in my seat before I do. I want to hold his hand a lot without a diaper bag between us. Someday. Someday....please someone with 20+ years of marriage under their belt tell me that the magic will still exist then. I'm just glad it's somehow surviving these crazy days we call life.
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