Back porch romance

I guess this is the time of year that I get mushy and find a desire to publicly state that so forgive me in advance.  (This is around the time that I wrote this blog last year)

I think I get mushy because it's our dating anniversary and remembering that transports me back in a blink of an eye.  Twelve years ago Matt and I decided to tell each other that we "liked" each other as more than friends and then like two days later he tried to declare his love for me.  He would say "I love you," and I would reply "I really like you a lot too."  He's never had a filter and I think I have been balancing him out since then.

When I think about that time in our life, I think about how big everything felt.  Big feelings, big plans, big dreams.  Running by Abner's for a quick dinner wasn't a date.  Dates required high heels and nice cuts of beef.  Romance required hand written love letters and Matt strumming some new song about us on the guitar.  I can remember the drives when we would discuss what things would be like "when we got married" and how well behaved our future children would be.  Everything about that time was so idealized and so grand and so sweetly naive.

And then there is now.  We're married.  We're living with our perfectly behaved children (well we're living with our children anyway).  We're living the things that we daydreamed about.

And I couldn't be happier.

Grand is not a word that I would use to describe this stage though.  This stage is mundane.  It's exhausting.  It's dinner at 5:30 pm, bathing children, bedtime stories, and trying to put all of the details of the day into 15 minutes of catching up before we both crash and get ready to do it all again tomorrow.

But in all of these moments, romance has morphed into something that is so real and so meaningful.  So here you go love--Here is what I am thankful for today:

• I am thankful for long drives.  Each time we get in the car and Sam falls asleep and you tell John to entertain himself for a few minutes (and he actually does) and you grab my hand while we both just unload.  We share the funny stuff that we've been meaning to share, talk over the important stuff, dream about the stuff that is still to come, but mostly what means the most is you're touch...and the fact that our children are buckled into place and can't insert themselves between us.
• I am thankful for walks.  When things get stressful, we sort of subconsciously both decide we need to start walking again.  I think we think we're doing it for exercise, but what seems to always happen is that we talk and talk and talk and I remember why you're favorite person ever.
• I am thankful that sometimes when our kids are losing their minds around us that we can tune them out when we lock eyes and share a moment of "I won't run away if you don't run away" or maybe sometimes it's more like "if you run away you better take me with you." To think that it once took long handwritten love letters and now we can say all of that and more with a 3 second look. 
• I am thankful that you take the time to find out what is going on with me.  Your job is infinitely more glamorous than mine.  There is nothing sexy about bananas mashed in my yoga pants and library story times, but you listen to the details of my day like they are the most fascinating thing you have ever heard.
• I am thankful that when our kids do something that is you all over again, I realize that this has become something so much bigger than us.  Our sweet "moment" 12 years ago gave way to something powerful enough to create life.
• I am thankful for slow dances in the kitchen.
• And I am thankful for back porch romance.  I am thankful that some of my very favorite dates in recent history have happened on our very own back porch with food that I cooked and in the quietest form of quiet, bed time quiet.  No high heels.  No fancy cuts of meat.  Just me and you and something edible, and our back porch becomes the most romantic locale in all of the world.

We could probably give in to the mundane.  We could let our marriage be a casualty of it, but I am so thankful every single day of my life that neither of us will.  That car rides and back porch dates aren't forced romance, but truly moments that can take my breath away in the way that roses and candlelit restaurants used to.  

And wow are we ever lucky for it.