About a year ago The Husband and I were gifted with two theater tickets and a dinner out. The gift has sat in our office drawer for over a year waiting for the perfect situation.
First we thought we’d try to make a weekend out of it and rent a hotel room in the city and just spend time together. We talked through some beautiful getaways including night show one night dinner another or a matinee and dinner the night before with a stroll through Central Park thrown in somewhere.
Sometimes I think just talking through those weekends gave The Husband and I the vacation from our lives that we needed.
Well, a year later those perfect weekends never came to life. For whatever reason-time, money, babysitting etc., we never went and the tickets have sat unused.
For the last two weeks I’m pretty sure The Husband and I have spent approximately 13 minutes awake in the same space and in those 13 minutes we have discussed some stressor of another. It’s just that season of too much to do and too little time and money to do it. You’d think we would be used to this by now because it seems to happen every spring but we are not. We still get grumpy and cranky and wonder when it’s ever going to let up. What we need is time alone, to reconnect without a million errands or worries on our mind. But who gets that? Who can afford the childcare and then trip and the entertainment? Not us-usually. We make do with wine on Friday nights in a quiet living room or Saturday afternoon chats on our porch. But we dream of time alone, somewhere other than our house without a care-at least for a small while.
On Wednesday, my M.I.L was here watching the kid while I trekked into the city for a work thing (which I can’t wait to share with you later!) and she and I were chatting about this very busy season. I mentioned our dreams of a weekend getaway and she said, “what are you doing this weekend?”.
After a few minutes of stammering and quickly texting The Husband to no avail, I made the decision we’d figure it out on way or the other. We’re pretty strapped for cash so there’s no big weekend getaway for us, but we did have this entire night in NYC already paid for sitting in our office drawer.
I tried dinner first and sure enough we could get a late Saturday night reservation. Then I went to telecharge to see what our gift card would cover and what the heck would still be available three days later! We’re going to a show that we probably never would have chosen if we had more time, but it’s one I’ve been dying to see since the commercials started playing on a loop here a few months ago.
Most importantly about the whole thing, we have some dedicated time together where we don’t have to worry about money because everything was paid for by someone else. I’m sure the gift givers had no idea what a huge deal this would be to us when they gave us the gift but I can tell you these two little gift cards are worth way more to us than the number written on their face.
I hope everyone has as lovely a Saturday as I am looking forward to!
P.S. Looking for more parenting guidance and tips for self-care? Check out From Chaos to Calm a guided training to help you feel better in this tough season.
