Wednesday, I woke up at…

Wednesday, I woke up at 3:30 (stress dreams about work) and worked almost straight through until 10, at which point, awfully tired, I sort of got into a relationship argument with Kevin that kept me up 'til 11:30. Not really about anything in particular, except how for the past six years we've mostly given our best selves to children and work and keeping ourselves sane (mixing up priority order as needed) and almost never each other as a couple, and how I'm tired of that and don't want to keep doing it until I'm dead. Not even just until the kids go to college. Kevin wasn't really disagreeing with me, and we've talked about this (and agreed on it) before, so I suppose it wasn't really an argument. More of a Mary Anne-meltdown. We agreed to really get on this whole 'date night' thing that we keep saying we're going to try.

Thursday, I woke up at 5:30 and worked almost straight through (with a ten-minute nap in a chair in my office) until 10 p.m., when I arrived home from my writing workshop to discover that the jasmine tea I'd had with dinner had not been non-caffeinated herbal, but rather somewhat-caffeinated green. WIDE AWAKE. And got into a long, great conversation with Kevin about the critique of my memoir and various issues it brought up, followed by discussion of men and why they don't like mediocre fantasy novels written by women (there was a side-tangent into why apparently some men hate the men on _Bones_), and some talk about the genre fiction we read growing up, etc. and some other fun stuff and I went to sleep finally at around 2 p.m., forcing myself to stop talking to him because I knew I HAD to get some sleep or I would spend today crying. But it really was the best time; just blissful. This is why I picked him.

Today, I woke up at 5:30 a.m. to the sound of the children playing some elaborate game in the library, with shrieks of laughter. I like childish shrieks of laughter normally. Not now. I really HAVE to get about three hours of work done. And in theory, Kevin and I have an actual date night tonight -- dinner and a movie (The Butler). We've scheduled a babysitter and everything. It feels a little ridiculous, given last night's awesome conversation and today's exhaustion, but I think I'm going to try to nap this afternoon (I am a terrible napper, and usually wake seriously groggy for a while).

Because even if spontaneous green-tea-inspired fantasy-novels-and-gender-issues conversations are awesome, I don't want to rely on them spontaneously happening, especially when I'm supposed to be sleeping. We're going to make a serious commitment to scheduling time for each other, dammit. After finishing Roiphe's Bloomsbury marriage book, one thing was thrown into sharp relief -- that it is entirely possible to go through most of your life married to someone you love, but somehow...just missing each other. Focusing on other things, other people, relying on your partner to just be there. And if Kevin and I did that too, we'd be okay. We'd have a pretty good partnership.

But I want more. I want bliss. And I think maybe bliss starts with not cancelling date night.