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So. I have decided what my number one reason for wishing my kids were younger when they are now teenagers is…
My wedding anniversary is this month. We will be celebrating 18 years of marriage. Although that is not an especially momentous number – this month will also signify that we have been together as a couple for 20 years. I started to think of what we could do to celebrate. It didn’t take long before I felt grouchy and resentful.
I realized that we had not been alone overnight without our kids in 3 years!! Yes, that is right – 1,095 days and nights that we have had the pleasure of our children’s company ALL day and ALL night long. When the kids were little, my mother and father would take the kids overnight. They would go to spend time at their house or my mother would come to stay while my husband and I went away overnight. Sometimes the trips were just quick overnighters – sometimes they were business trips that took us out of the country for 4 nights. But it’s been a long time since either of those things has happened.
The last time my husband and I were away alone was 3 years ago when we went to St. Martins for my husband’s sales excellence award. I started daydreaming about that trip. The time we spent on the beach. The delicious meals. The swanky dresses. The massage at the spa. The time alone. Then I remembered the phone call from the Principal that interrupted our trip. The trip that I had to call my father and tell him to deal with the fact that my son had been in a fight at school and was in trouble. Yea – I remember that trip well. That was the last time we were alone together overnight.
The year before that my husband won a trip to Hawaii and we took the whole family and extended the trip for a full 2 weeks. It was a fabulous trip. A once in a lifetime opportunity for our family. We made wonderful memories to be cherished forever. We were so happy to be able to include our kids.
Last year my husband won another sales trip but it was to Indonesia in Bali and it was only 4 days long. The flight alone was ridiculous and my eldest son was going to be flying to Texas with his Robotics Team to go to the World Championships. After much hesitation, I opted out of the trip and without my company, my husband did as well. It didn't seem feasible. It didn't seem like a logical thing to do.
Last spring my husband had a business trip in Orlando and we chose to take all of the kids and make it a “Spring Break” vacation. (I know. I know.) But I honestly, had been so cold with all of the snow and blizzards that we had received that winter, I would have given anything to go lay on a hot rock and warm up my body temperature…so in my desperation, we ALL went. It was a nice trip with the kids, in the suite with us, at the pool with us, on evening walks with us...we couldn't shake those kids to save our lives.
So here we are – my husband and I having not been alone together overnight except for once in the past 5 years. Wow. I would give anything to be able to pack up and go for a weekend somewhere nearby. I don’t need to go far – honestly. I could ride 15 minutes up the road and stay at the airport hotel to be perfectly honest. In fact, I don’t need to leave my home. It would be completely acceptable if my kids went somewhere else for a couple of days while we stayed right here. In our home. Alone.
Over the last few years when I was opting out of trips or incorporating my children into them, it never dawned on me that one day very soon – we would be parents of teenagers that we could not leave home alone overnight without worrying about all of those things that teenagers do when their parents leave them home overnight alone and unsupervised. My husband is always quick to tell the story when he and his older brother threw a huge party when his parents left them home and went away together. He’ll never forget the night they arrived home – 24 hours early…in the middle of their party…girls mixing drinks in their mother’s blender in her kitchen. Needless to say, leaving the teens home overnight alone – not an option.
You see, it never occurred to me that my children would arrive at an age that they were no longer willing to go stay with their grandparents for a weekend. Somehow it has become embarrassing to them. While they love their grandparents dearly, to have to be “babysat” is mortifying in their eyes.
Have the days of being alone with my husband overnight really come to an end until all of my children have left the nest? If that is the truth – it is deeply depressing. I have been thinking about all of the little overnight trips and weekends alone that we shared in the past. They were wonderful times. Even the times we never left the house. Even the times, we would lay on the couch and watched Nightmare Theater all day. The times we chose to stay 20 minutes from home in a hotel after we had lunch at a favorite local restaurant because we could…Ugh. I have to stop. You get the point.
With our anniversary rapidly approaching, I have to admit that this particular year is a special one to celebrate. Not just because of our 20 years of “couplehood”, but because when you are raising teenagers, it can put an unbelievable amount of stress, tension and anxiety on your relationship. Sometimes it is hard to believe that the products of those hours of complete bliss that you shared during the night – have become a highly effective form of birth control. Teenagers and all of their drama are the biggest turnoff in the world. So the mere fact that a marriage has managed to survive another year with the relationship intact, let alone still maintaining physical attraction, is certainly nothing to sneeze at. This is a year to be celebrated beyond all of the others. Because your marriage has survived raising teenagers.
A friend of mine recently sent me a link to a song, “Dancing in the Minefields” by Andrew Peterson. It is a wonderful song. I encourage you to listen to it to fully appreciate it – but I’ll share the lyrics here with you:
“Well I was 19 you were 21
The year we got engaged
Everyone said we were much too young
But we did it anyway
We got the rings for 40 each from a pawnshop down the road
We said our vows and took the leap now 15 years ago
We went dancing in the minefields
We went sailing in the storm
And it was harder than we dreamed
But I believe that’s what the promise is for
Well ‘I do’ are the two most famous last words
The beginning of the end
But to lose your life for another I’ve heard is a good place to begin
Cause the only way to find your life is to lay your own life down
And I believe it’s an easy price for the life that we have found
And we’re dancing in the minefields
We’re sailing in the storm
This is harder than we dreamed
But I believe that’s what the promise is for
That’s what the promise is for
So when I lose my way, find me
When I lose love’s chains, bind me
At the end of all my faith
to the end of all my days
when I forget my name, remind me
Cause we bear the light of the son of man
So there’s nothing left to fear
So I’ll walk with you in the shadow lands
Till the shadows disappear
Cause He promised not to leave us
And His promises are true
So in the face of all this chaos baby
I can dance with you
So lets go dancing in the minefields
Lets go sailing in the storms
Oh lets go dancing in the minefields
And kicking down the doors
Oh lets go dancing in the minefields
And sailing in the storms
Oh this is harder than we dreamed
But I believe that’s what the promise is for
That’s what the promise is for"
While I would love nothing more than to share a weekend alone, I know that the days of romantic, solitary nights are sadly absent from this stage of parenting.
To my husband, Happy 18th Anniversary, I love you with all that I am. I’ll be waiting behind our bedroom door to dance in the minefield with you.
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