I love working late. You get me in front of a project and I don’t stop until it’s done. I’ll sit down in front of the computer after dinner and the next thing I know it’s 2am and I need to go sleep in the back room because I don’t want to wake Julie up. I think this says I’m a hard worker and driven to success. Except it also says I’m an idiot and a poor husband.
Yesterday I climbed into bed at 10:30pm. Julie and I spent 45 minutes chatting about our day, laughing at stupid stories, calling each other a “stupid butt poopoo head” (Don’t ask) and snuggling. It was amazing. It put me into such a good mood that I slept straight through the night, something I rarely do.
I forget sometimes what relationships are all about. They’re not about sex, you can have sex without being in a relationship. They’re not about cohabitation, you can get a roommate. They’re not even about kids, plenty of people have kids without being in a relationship. No, being with someone isn’t about any of those things. It’s about companionship, it’s about having a friend you can tell anything to and it’s about spending time with one another doing nothing in particular. It’s about being together in a way that’s like nothing else in this world.
You can spend time at home while not really being together. You can be watching TV in separate rooms, you can work on separate projects in the same room and still not be together. And that’s what I sometimes miss with my drive to finish my late night projects. In my rush to be the perfect husband and worker, I forget that the main responsibility in a relationship is just to be there for one another, to spend time in each other’s presence and to celebrate that togetherness.
It’s a good thing to be reminded of.
