Recuperating

After all that we have gone through this week, Ed and I needed to get away. And last night that's exactly what we did. The girls spent the night with my parents, and we made our escape. No, not to a cozy little bed & breakfast or luxury hotel (although that would have been wonderful), but to good old Nelson Ledges, to bond with nature and each other. It was awesome, probably better than an expensive get-away because we were doing something we both love, something simple that reminded us of the way things were before we became "husband and wife," back when we were just Ed and Amy, very much in love. Back when we could spend hours just walking around the park, or playing board games, talking and laughing. I think we both have realized lately that we've gotten so caught up in trying to be the people we think we're supposed to be, these strict little notions of what a husband/dad and wife/mother are supposed to be, that we've lost sight of who we really are, what we built our relationship and our family on. And that's part of why things have been so strained in our marriage lately; it's not just because of the money problems because we've always had those (and they used to be worse), but because we haven't been really connecting with each other the way we used to. So we're trying, in our own little ways, to get back to being that awesome couple who had prayed so much for each other, and was just so thankful to be together that it didn't matter how poor we were or what problems popped up--we faced them together. We didn't need a lot of money to be happy back then, and our trip to the Ledges yesterday proved that to us again. We walked around, we helped each other leap our pudgy butts over crevasses (and realized just how badly we need to lose weight!), we enjoyed the beauty of God's creation and the amazing autumn leaves, and just basically had a great time being together. And for a couple hours I forgot that our house has a lead problem, the kids missed too much school this week, I have mid-terms coming up, and the phone bill needs paid. For a couple hours it was just me and my husband and the beautiful world that God made for us. It was like eating cookie dough from the bowl for my soul.