At this writing, I'm on a C & J express bus to my old stomping ground, New York City, for a weekend with my little sister. I'm a strong believer in short getaways as a way of refueling, particularly if the getaway gets you away from your spouse for awhile. That may sound cold, but sometimes a little space has a big positive impact on a marriage. How, you ask?
1. You reconnect with separate friends and relatives on your own without worrying about the mix with a spouse who may not share your enthusiasm for jewelry shopping, lattes, and schmoozing.
2. You re-experience your individual selves which brought you two together. My husband will probably be doing yard work till midnight, watching the news for hours each morning, eating no vegetables except for vodka (made from potatoes), puttering around his workshop, answering no calls, and fondling his new camera he's afraid of using. He'll be in Introvert Heaven. I'll be tooling around the city with my baby sister, bossing her around, buying makeup and doodads, going to museums if it rains, people watching, yakking with strangers, and eating every ethnic thing in sight. I'll be in Extrovert Heaven.
3. You break up the sometimes oppressive routine of your life with more consciousness. In my case, I was amazed to see how many vitamins and creams and solutions and meds I take on any given day just to go on living! I could barely fit it all in my suitcase! I like to think of myself as robust and traveling lightly on this Earth. Apparently, not so....
4. You appreciate all the comforts of home in a renewed way. I don't usually get excited about having a level, stable surface to type on, but today, with the bus jiggling and swaying, I'm realizing how special it is to have tables and desks to put my laptop on, and not worry it will go flying off into the yonder. Small things.....
5. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. Because I'm a bit morbid and fatalistic, I don't presume I'll make a safe return from ANYWHERE, so I kissed my husband goodbye four times, and hugged him as though I was leaving for a tour of duty in Afghanistan. And now that the bus is approaching the slums of the city limits, I miss him already..... :-|
Happy weekend!
Susan Lager
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