Left to our own devices

Do you see this? It’s the wedding present. I just wanted you to see that it actually does exist. The significance of this will be made clear later on.

Twenty-four hours sans children. That’s what we were looking forward to—twenty four hours of pure adult time. Except we hadn’t really planned anything (because we all know that when I plan something, someone ends up with lice). When the freedom came we were at a loss.

Here are some of the things we learned about ourselves:

1) We are some of the most boring people on the face of the earth.
2) You know you’re old when the prospect of going to a late movie and running into your teenager’s friends/classmates convinces you to stay at home in your yoga pants and watch movies on Netflix, drinking gin and eating Halloween candy.
3) J should not be allowed to touch my hairdryer.
4) I will forget something. Every. Damn. Time.
5) J and I are still capable, in fact, of carrying on a long, in-depth, uninterrupted conversation—unless we are being really, super-boring, and have nothing important to say.

Friday night was fun, once we found a place where we didn’t have to wait more than 45 minutes to eat. It was even more fun when we gave up trying to see a movie in the theaters (I wanted to watch something with subtitles—he vetoed; he wanted to watch something with Bruce Willis- I vetoed) and just went to the store to pick up candy and tonic water.

While at the store, J turned to me with a so-very-serious look on his face, and then broke the news to me that he had killed my hair dryer days ago. He killed it by taking it apart, trying to figure out what I felt the need to shake it, continuously, while I dry my hair. He had been looking for the right time to tell me this fact, and since we were already at the store, and there was a friend’s wedding tomorrow, which meant a slight chance that I might actually fix my hair; it appeared to finally be the right moment.

I can tell you why I shake the hairdryer. It has a short in it. He didn’t need to take it apart to find it out. He killed my perfectly good-- been around longer than him-- hair dryer when he could have just asked why I felt the need to shake it.

I shake it because I love that hair dryer, and I never wanted to let it go. I think I spent $13 on that thing over a decade ago, and I was planning on shaking it for the rest of my natural life.

By the way, dryer-shaking is a skill that takes years to perfect. It’s also going to take years to break the habit.

So, there I was, in an aisle full of hair dryers, with concentrators and diffusers and ceramic and ionizers and cord retractors and designer colors, and all I was looking for was the one that would dry my hair the fastest. I guess you could say that I am not a girly-girl.

Being overwhelmed in the hair dryer aisle on a Friday night—that’s just how we roll, people.

Friday night at home with gin and tonics and Reeses peanut butter cups while watching crazy movies was great. We woke up in time to get around for the wedding. I was still suffering from the devastating news of my loss of the beloved hair dryer, and the new hair dryer felt odd in my hand and dried my hair way too fast. It was knocking me off my game. I felt all out of sorts.

I remembered that I needed to get the wedding present (which I had wrapped days ago, and put in a safe place where children and neurotic dogs could not destroy it) off the top shelf of the laundry room. I knew, in my agitated state, that I should not be in charge of remembering such an important item.

“J!” I called in to the bathroom, “Hey, it would not be funny if we forgot the wedding present. It would make us the worst friends in the world!”

“You’re absolutely right,” he shouted back, in return. “You should make sure not to forget the wedding present!”

“Yeah, but since the tragic death of my hair dryer, my life has been turned upside down. It’s a topsy-turvy world out here right now, and I should not be left in charge of such important matters. I think you should remember to bring the wedding present!”

That’s when J muttered something unintelligible from the bathroom, which I took as his unequivocal assent to my ingenious new plan.

I realized about 15 miles down the road that HE had forgotten the wedding present. We didn’t have time to go back. I hope J feels incredibly guilty—this wedding (barring the fact that they didn’t elope, of course) was made for my husband:

Ceremony- short, sweet, to the point.
Place- not a church.
Reception- brunch, with biscuits and gravy (his favorite breakfast item).
Music- the acoustic group played Clapton. Twice.

That’s right; you really can’t do much better by my husband. Plus, he got to wear his new suit.

Towards the end of the day, and after all of the wedding fun, we went over to my folks’ house to have dinner and collect our children. The evening was gorgeous—perfect autumn weather, perfect autumn sunset. We had a great dinner, and packed up the kiddos right before bed. Since the Nana wore those kids out that day, K popped in his ear buds and Ant promptly fell asleep in the back of the car.

Leaving J and I to our own devices once again.

We talked. We talked about our day, and how happy we are for our newly married friends. We talked about the interesting people we had met that afternoon. We talked about what life would be like when the children were grown and we were left to our own devices on a regular basis. We talked about the things we want to do in life, all of the adventures we want to go and the places we want to explore. We talked about ways to make ourselves less-boring.

And for the first time since K was born, I caught a glimpse of the person I would be when I was not a mother first and foremost.