All I want is a damn coffee. I feel like the warm brew of beans will help squelch this hangover threatening to ruin my day.
The thing is, I can’t have my beloved coffee yet because I’m trying my damndest to remove gin-soaked mint leaves from my French press’s filter.
Jamie had the bright idea last night to make a large batch of mojito mix in the press to save us from having to use the one-cup shaker every time we wanted to mix a drink.
It honestly seemed like a great idea last night — fueled by sunshine and minty alcoholic beverages. Now, this morning, with a day’s worth of work ahead of me, I feel we might have made an error in judgement.
Sitting poolside with the hubs in our backyard and sharing stories over iced beverages is my favourite thing to do in the world.
Poolside isn’t as fancy as you may think…
Author’s idea of “poolside”(iStockphoto)
But it’s “our” perfect, and that’s what matters.
Things have been sticky lately between Jamie and me. We’ve been drifting apart. Not fighting, just drifting further into these separate worlds we’ve created for ourselves.
He’s a rail worker, something I have no interest in despite the number of times I try to transform his train-speak into sexy talk. He has made friends in this career, but I haven’t had the opportunity to meet most of the people he talks about daily because of his weird and erratic work schedule.
Over the last six months, I’ve wrapped myself snugly in the world of online writing. It started out as a career move — I wanted to make friends with a few writers in order to get feedback on my work. However, as it so often happens, the situation evolved, and now, I am madly in love with my online friends. I just want to spend all my time reading their work and trying to become funnier so I can make them laugh with mine.
Thus the marriage dynamic has shifted.
So here we are, having gone from spending every day with one another when we owned our sandwich shop to not having much in common at all when it comes to our new respective jobs.
I am glued to my computer screen, chasing the next read. And Jamie is rarely home because he’s so busy chasing trains.
Sometimes it feels like we’re roommates who like to sleep with one another and benefit from the tax breaks that having a family provides. Which really isn’t so bad of a deal when you think about it.
I know at the core of the thing, this is just a phase. We are wading around in these new careers, and we must coddle and pay them attention so we can grow them to fruition. That’s a fair statement, despite how much you may want to preach the ever-cliche words, “Make time for your marriage!”
Sometimes there is no room for time. Jamie and I are lucky in the sense that we have a strong foundation, so these “attention breaks” won’t break us.
However, every once in a while, despite our busy schedules, we find ourselves sharing a spur-of-the-moment backyard date.
“You wanna go outside for a pee, big girl?” I say to Lucy, our German Shepherd in the baby talk voice she’s become accustomed to.
Instead of Lucy replying to me, like I fully expect her to do one day, Jamie says, “I don’t have to go pee, but I’ll join you outside for a drink.” He pauses while I look at him curiously and then adds, “And please, don’t call me big girl.
You know how uncomfortable that makes me.”
Dad jokes. He’s chock-full of them.
Jamie makes the gin mojitos in the French press and pours us two glasses. Then we find our green plastic lawn chairs and pull them poolside. We steer clear of work subjects for topics of conversation because we don’t want to think about work on this very seldom afternoon off.
We talk about how proud we are of the kids. Lars with honour roll grades this year. Sophie and her incredible ability to pull off being a 40-year-old woman trapped in a ten-year-old’s body. They indeed are lovely human beings. And we are proud. It’s the one thing we’re allowed to brag endlessly about — this ability to shape these extremely cool people into young adults.
We talk about what we’d do if we won the 70 mil jackpot that’s still up for grabs at the moment.
- Purchase a large swimming facility.
- Drain the pool.
- Fill the pool with loonies and toonies (so Canadian, I know).
- And Scrooge McDuck that shit.
Of course, Jamie, the ever-pessimist, has to bring up the fact that the impact of trying to dive into such a pool would surely kill us, or at the very least, cause us a pretty severe spinal injury.
We laugh and play footsies in the cool grass, and I remember what it’s like to truly be a partner with my husband.
…
The hangover has hit, the French press still has a faint smell of acrid gin to it, and I now am struggling to find something to write about in this foggy brain of mine.
Between financial stress, raising kids and all of the other adulting nightmares that come along with being a 30-something life can often be challenging to navigate. But, together, we manage it somehow. We are still creating the memories, and despite how difficult it seems day to day, I look back on our twelve years and smile gratefully.
How did we make it this far? How can we be so different from all those years ago, and somehow appreciate each other more than ever?
Is this the highlight reel — drinking mojitos beside a blowup pool and laughing at our 40-year-old daughter when she tells us we should be more responsible? Is this what we’re going to look back on and think, those were the glory days, my friend.
If so, I’m okay with it.
I sometimes get so anxious about this life, wondering if things will ever be easier. But then I realize it’s not about easy — It’s about happiness.
And we most certainly are happy.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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Photo credit: William Daigneault on Unsplash
