Love and Sushi

Friday night Anthony and I had a much-needed date. It wasn’t much needed because of marital strife or neglect, just because we needed a little "face time" (and a touch of romance can’t hurt, either). He called me the day before and asked if I would be interested in going out with him for the next evening. Are you kidding me? Oh, yeah. I love what I do being "Mom", but to just be "Jessi"-or-"J"-or-"Chop"-or-whatever-else Anthony calls me for the night sounded like paradise. Coincidentally, it was also the anniversary of the day he asked me to marry him. Twelve years ago on September 5, 1996 he set in motion the chain of events that has brought our lives to here and now. Now that is a great memory. Planning a date on the same day as this momentous anniversary was not intentional, Anthony confesses, but it was like a little wink from Heaven for us to be able to swing an evening alone on that momentous occasion.

Mom and Dad were troopers and picked up our kiddos on their way back from time spent with their other grandbabies. Soon after they left we departed ourselves. It was a lovely night with the hint of Fall’s crispness in the air and the beginning of its strikingly painted colors. It was a night that to others might seem relatively uneventful in the world of "Dates". We ate our weight in sushi, looked at price-reduced-but-still-over-priced-for-us home décor, had a fifteen-minute disagreement that we quickly bounced back from, drank delicious coffee with dessert, watched a movie that was actually worth seeing, scooped our babies up to wake in their own beds the next morning, and ended the evening once again amazed that we could love each other more in those moments than we did the day before, and still not as much as tomorrow.

We had an awesome date. What a blessing. What an infusion of rest and joy and laughter and satisfaction. We are so many things we didn’t used to be; Daddy and Mama times two, pastor, homeowners, possessors of seasoned and weathered friendships, recipients of some of life’s greatest treasures, and survivors of trials by fire. But a date night gives a chance to realize that, in some capacity, we’re still the "Anthony and Jessi" we set out being. "Us". The rest of life over the last twelve years doesn’t melt away, leaving just the Anthony and me of old. It’s understandably more complex than that. "The rest of life" has seeped into our pores and its part of who we are, additional threads in the fabric of Us. It’s an altered reality from the way we started out, like "Us, and then some."

When we date, we no longer think that we have to make a pact to not talk about the kids; their part of Us. We aren’t threatened by discussion of the day-to-day; it doesn’t diminish Us. But the time alone, just we two, does afford Us moments to look across a table and be pleasantly reminded of things that perhaps go unnoticed in the everyday; the curve of a smile, the vivid colors in a pair of eyes, the contrast of skin tones with one hand laid on top of another.

Twelve years in, is some of the mystique gone? Well, truthfully (if there ever was any), yep. But there is a mastery of conversation and laughter. Do we get as gussied up as we once did? Maybe not, but we go hand-in-hand and rediscover the beauty the other possesses. Do we try to top the last date with being more expensive and extravagant than the last? Nope. Most times we stretch the dollars and pinch the pennies until they scream, but we discover we can still come away fulfilled on a shoestring. And do we play the coy and cunning game of flirtation and wooing that we once might have? Nah. We traded that long ago for a connectedness that doesn’t require the batting of eyelashes or the carefully chosen words meant to seduce. Those things are nice, certainly part of "the dance". We just don’t need them to draw us in. We’re there already.

At the end of the day (and the middle, and the beginning) I still would rather be with Anthony than anyone on the planet. That amazes me. I don’t know all the ways we got here, but I sure do like it. Us. Anthony and Jessica. "Priceless" and "Wealthy", the meanings of our names. Boy, don’t I know it first hand. What’s in a name? In my experience, a lot.

"And I could never take a chance
at losing love to find romance
in the mysterious distance
between a man and a woman."
- U2