Two Hours on a Sunday Afternoon

You’ll never believe it! Something happened yesterday afternoon that hadn’t happened for a very long time. It was fantastic. It was divine. It was like a meteor streaking across the breadth of the sky, like firecrackers exploding in midair into millions of brilliant colors. I know what you’re thinking, and you would be right. Yesterday afternoon my wife and I got to spend two hours together… ALONE.

When we first decided to have children, it was a lot of fun figuring out how we were going to parent. We dissected every single thing about the process, from who was going to take the kid to ballet class, to whether or not we would “believe” in Santa Claus, to even what cities were best to raise children of mixed race in, but for some reason we never thought about not having private time again. Why didn’t anyone ever tell us about that?

So, we have two children who are always underfoot, who always crave every last moment of our attention, who don’t seem to want to do much alone. Add in the fact that our only babysitter is my mother-in-law, so we tend to be at her whim when we want some time alone, and you’ll understand why yesterday was so dynamic. To put it into perspective, the last time we got a couple of hours alone was when the last Arnold Schwarzenneger movie came out. You know, unless you count an hour or so at night after the girls have gone to bed, but one, or both of us, tends to knock out early.

That’s why yesterday afternoon was so incredible. When you become a parent it’s easy to forget that you still wear other hats, especially for the first year or two. Your life is so wrapped up in being a father that you lose sight of that fact that you’re still an individual, a son, a brother, and, yes, a husband too. But those are parts of your life that cannot be neglected. You need them to see the whole three-dimensional picture that is you, to appreciate who you are, and to not get lost in one facet of your personality. Those first two years after having our first child, I honestly think we lost ourselves in parenthood. But now we’re coming back, in bits and pieces, rediscovering ourselves as individuals and as husband and wife.

Having that two hours together was magical, and it also helped us to appreciate our roles as parents too. Having that time apart from the kids gave us better perspective to deal with them when they returned. Plus, they got to spend quality time alone with their grandmother. So it was a win-win. But even more than that, I got to spend time with the woman I chose even before I chose to have children. I got to spend time as just a husband, and I’ve missed that guy.

Sam