Romance Revised

So it's quite obvious to most of us (sorry if I am about to burst a bubble/fantasy) that married life is not like it is in the movies...that the romance portrayed on-screen is unfeasible and practically impossible to have or maintain.

The image in my head just doesn't jive with reality...and so I just assumed that meant I would have to keep these ridiculous expectations in my head and attempt not to dwell on them at any or every chance possible.

A copy of Grown-Up Marriage was ironically (ironically only because my sister is not or never has been married) in a box my sister had destined for her garage sale.  It came to my home.   (I can't refuse too many books...)  Judith Viorst its author also penned Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day - a kids' book that was in my classroom and now makes its home on our bookshelf when not inhabiting end tables or in bedside buckets.

One of the ideas in her book clonked me over the head and forced me to re-think this idea I had embraced about hiding away romantic expectations.

No, no...don't give up.  Don't secretly desire something and then guilt yourself because you expected a completely unrealistic thought or action.

Just re-frame those expectations...redefine and revise what it is that romance is to you.  "Everyday married life is prose, not poetry" (p.95, Grown-Up Marriage).

I am continually, much to the chagrin of our children and my husband, saying, "if you can't change something then change the way you think about it".  And Judith Viorst gave me that "taste of my own medication".

So here is the re-framed version of Romance Revised...this morning while I rested in bed, believing I was hearing almost every chirp of child and dancing of husband to youtube songs (but actually dozing off), my husband shut our bedroom door and made our habitual Sunday morning pancakes, sliced up fruit, spooned caramel yogurt into fancy verrines, fandangled children into getting dressed, and did all of yesterday's dishes.

Is that not romance???

Who needs flowers or trips away or  unbridled passion when you can have a) sleep and b) clean countertops???

I have the most romantic husband in the world.