When The Hubs and I were dating we went to a lot of workshops together. We are both what you might call new agey, hippy-dippy, spiritual-but-not-religious-people (although I love Joel Osteen and was a member of my Church Choir for years.)
However, while we were dating, we went to workshops at churches, yoga studios, and anywhere we could find relationship advice and guidance.
My favorite of all the different classes we did was about connecting with your heart. It was a 6 week class. I don’t remember the name of the teacher, the place where we took it or what we studied. All I remember from the class is one sentence. One, glorious and powerful sentence:
You create your relationship every day.
That’s it. So simple.
The teacher said that people wonder why relationships die. They go out with someone, it’s all fabulous in the beginning and then suddenly something happens. The relationship gets stale.
He went on to say, relationships do not get stale. People forget – you create your relationship every day. What people do is stop creating and then wonder what went wrong.
Well I guess if you count all that, it’s a whole paragraph. 6 week two hour class – and one paragraph was all I got. Oddly enough, it was all I needed.
We left that class and promised, solemnly swore even. We will create our relationship every day. We will not forget and go stale. We will be fresh. Every day.
Once we decided we create our relationship every day then the next question was – how?
We decided to text each other at least once a day. We don’t like to call each other during the day when we are both focused and working, however we religiously text each other at lunch time.
Texts go something like this:
12/11/12
Hubs: 1:05 pm Loving my over-scheduled wife kisses.
Hubs: 1:21pm Nashville soundtrack is out.
Wifey:1:33pm Yay! Itunes! Late lunch kisses!
12/12/12
Hubs: 12:14 pm Manipulative Assistant Ellis is out on Smash. New showrunner making changes.
Wifey: 12:18pm Yay!
Hubs: 12:12pm And more musicals, not just Bombshell
Wifey: 12:20pm Yes! They all need jobs on different musicals – more songs.
Wifey: 4:52pm Lovey dovey kisses for my hubsicle!
12/28/12
Wifey: 9:02 am Off to sort mail
Hubs:9:03 am Just whistle while you work
We have fun. We make each other laugh. Sometimes The Hubs reads Entertainment Weekly during his lunch time. He has declared himself my personal news-machine hence the updates on my favorite shows.
We create. Fresh Everyday.
Just like Starbucks and Krispy Kreme.
When we get home we hug. We stop whatever we are doing and hug.
Hugs are sacred.
Then we leave the day behind, change clothes, open the mail and start with our Daily Check-In.
We go on dates. When a new movie is coming out we ask each other out. We plan it. As if we were dating. Because we are.
We plan vacations. We love -with zeal and devotion- planning vacations. Not just the vacation itself, but the planning of it. I love beautiful hotels and magical experiences. The spiritual retreat with my favorite author. The acoustic concert with my favorite singer. The Hubs loves guide books and maps. We both love making memories together.
Whenever handed lemons, we promptly make lemonade. On a trip to Costa Rica we accidentally locked our keys in our car. (Notice that I say we. The details don’t matter, we are a team and it happened to both of us. That ‘we’ really helps when there is a lemon parade. ‘We’ got in this together and ‘we’ will get out of it.)
Anyway, as I was saying, there we were not going anywhere in Costa Rica. For several hours.
So we took a hike. Literally. We hiked up a hill. Saw cows. Laid in the grass and looked at clouds. Laughed and hugged.
One of my favorite memories ever was created when our keys were locked in our car.
Lemonade. It’s the new classic coke.
Fresh. Everyday.
Your turn. Name one thing you do to keep your relationship fresh. Go!
Please Share in the Comments.
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