Really... Sometimes you have to stop being afraid. Afraid of what other people will think, what other people will say. Life is for joy and risk and love and all-out-in-your-face enthusiasm. And letting go of fear is a huge step. Fear of loving, fear of laughing, fear of being authentic.
I’ve been afraid of posting this blog post for months…I wrote it last year during Laurie Foley's class, Blog More/Stress Less. It's a short little thing, and one of my first tries, but I wrote it with joy and giggles, and it’s all true.
So…fear of it being to personal, too intimate...who cares! I've been absolutely silly! And anyway, I think you will all think it’s lovely.
I’m dedicating this to my beautiful, strong-as-a-rock, rock-star husband! He is my perfect-for-me spouse that I intend to spend at least another 23 years with as his wife.
Let’s start somewhere in the middle of the original post…
Even so – we were both a little worried about what our life would be like as empty nesters this past fall…our son is such a huge part of our life and our joy.
I can tell you emphatically, it’s been fun, scary, surprising – and we see a delightful future.
One of our ‘delights’ has evolved over the last couple of months…We seem to have more time in the morning, and there is no one else in the house but us…so Tim frequently would ask if I wanted to shower with him. Well, of COURSE not! "Our shower is smaaalllll, I need to shave my leggggs, I like the water hottttter"…I would whine all the reasons this would not work.
But then one day I said ok. This was not about sex (shower is Waaaayyyy Too Smallllll)…this was about physically connecting.
Hmmmm….that was nice!
Maybe I would do that again. It did set a nice tone to the day, making a sweet connection, and having your back washed is quite a luxury!
Then I saw where it would really come in handy.
I was trying to entice my husband to exercise more to reduce his cholesterol. It was tough to get him going, but he was trying. One day he asked if I wanted to take a shower with him, and I got the brilliant idea to say ‘no exercise, no shower!’ He was ON the stairclimber. Ha Ha!!! The bait! I found the bait…
So now, many mornings of the week, he will be on his stair climber and I’ll be on the elliptical, and then we’ll take a shower and start our day. The surprise is that I’m the one who is running to the elliptical on the days he gets started early so that I’ll be finished in time to get in the shower with him! We raise our oxytocin levels, we laugh, sometimes talk business, sometimes it’s just a ‘quickie’ shower because of schedules…but a lovely start to the day…making a lovely connection stronger.
And besides, he gives great back…. ;)