I love those moments in my marriage when I can honestly say “This one is going to last a while.” And this sort of thing is always borne of evidence with absolutely no romantic merit whatsoever.

I’ve kinda always (or, since I was 18-ish) believed that Valentine’s Day was honestly a bullshit Hallmark branded holiday but, as I’ve gotten to be in a marriage that includes a child, I’ve realized the importance of taking advantage of and ignoring the whole overcommercialization of it. While we make it a point to say “I love you” every day and give each other a meaningful “Goodnight Hug-n-Kiss” we don’t nearly put as much focused, streamlined energy into “us” as we would if we had less stress and a little more time. (I know, a pathetic excuse but a reality I’m accepting and working with.) So, for V-Day this year, I found an overnight babysitter for the Bear and spent all day cleaning the house and making it look like a cozy romantic bungalow with candles and white Christmas lights and massage oil and wine and no evidence that there is a screaming, dependent toddler wrecking the sanctuary of the space on a moment-to-moment basis… (I even bought spring water, chilled it and put it in a glass bottle by the bed for um… late night refreshment. And I laid out a palette and fancy massage tools for a full-body experience. And I laid out pajama bottoms and a comfy t-shirt for the minute he came through the door. I was thorough!) I splurged on a fancy steak that I marinated and made a big fancy adult dinner for two and surprised my husband with a quiet, slow-paced evening when he got home from work. (The gently-falling snow outside was just a happy coicidence.) While images of lustful, sweaty lovemaking may immediately spring to mind, the best part of the evening was the couple hours we sat in front of the fire and just talked about nothing but ourselves and each other and what we wanted to do with our lives. I know that sounds ridiculous and somewhere my inner 15-year-old-romantic is snoring but there was something in the comfortable security of the moment that I really cherished and appreciated. Sure, torrid, dramatic relationships always have incredible highs but there’s so much more to be gleaned from a solid, trustworthy relationship with someone in which you’re allowed to be comfortable enough to grow and flourish. I much prefer the latter, to be honest.

Anyway, it wasn’t so much the boring things we talked about that I enjoyed but what those particular topics meant. For example, for a while now it has become apparent that we rely entirely too much on the television to fill our time. It’s not like we’re one of those couples who has “Our Show” every night of the week but, too often, we’ll turn it on just because we’re tired and we’ll watch whatever crap is on just because it’s on instead of going out and doing all those things on our “To Do List” that we’ve been meaning to get to for forever. It’s just too easy for us, at the end of a long day, to say “Schmeh, let’s watch this crappy, pointless, self-indulgent reality show to get our minds off our stressors for the next hour and then go to bed.” instead of challenging ourselves to get off our asses and do something productive. I’ve been battling this notion for a long long time now but, often, I find myself just hopping on board with the same routine at the end of the day out of habit and exhaustion. So, when the hubs suggested that we cancel our cable subscription I was elated for a number of reasons - primarily the realization that there’s someone else on my side who wants to change our family and the way we’ve been conducting our day-to-day. I know, it’s something tiny and it’s not really a sacrifice to be honest, but it will create a change in our personal habits and cause a chain reaction as to how we spend our time and where we invest our energies. Knowing that he wants to enrich our family time as much as I do is huge to me and gives me a renewed energy to keep making positive changes.

Additionally, we started talking about the new house that we’re in the market for. To my joy, he reiterated (without prompting) that he wanted a large piece of land, preferably outside a subdivision with a HOA and he wants to use the land for mini-camping trips with the Bear, building our varied art and science projects, holding Christmas-caroling bonfires in December and moving our lifestyle to one of a more self-sustaining style. A lot of times I feel like my crazy ideas for an off-center, bohemian-esque homestead is one that I’m just sort of forcing on him, so when he excitedly talks about wanting to build solar panels for our roof or finally starting a composting cycle in the backyard, I get relieved and happy that I’m in good company. I know it’s wrong to rely on someone else to fuel my energy for change but there is a great amount of energy generated when the other person in my marriage is as excited about moving forward and upward as I am. It makes me feel more confident in the things I want for my life and our family and gives me excitement about the fact that I get to share all that with someone else, even if everyone else in our lives thinks we’re nutty hippie freaks.

So yeah. New house and no cable. Step one.

Oh, and I’m getting back to this Pronoiac Month thing later on. It’s been busy ’round here.