Romance in the Time of Cholera

How many days have we been cooped up now? It’s like May 78th now right? Actually, it’s May 4th – as an avid Star Wars fan – May the Fourth be with you! The hubs and I celebrated our sixth anniversary recently, and it comes to mind – how are these marriages holding up and where is the romance?

I thought for funsies I’d take my all-too-extensive knowledge of romantic comedies and just throw some ideas out there that can be done for little to no supplies, money or otherwise in this time of crazy.

• Make your partner coffee or lunch (a super big shout out to my beloved who does this daily while we work…I told him the other day that quarantine has provided the most consecutive amount of days I’ve eaten lunch…basically ever.)
• Make a flower – I realize roses aren’t the easiest thing to come by and those couples who do this on a weekly or monthly basis, grab some of the junk mail we all seem to be swimming in and make some paper flowers – here’s the tutorial I used!
• Date night – put the kid(s) to bed a tiny bit early if you can trick them into it…and try to make dinner together. This is what we just did a few weekends ago. Bonus points if you can scrounge up a nice dance floor and some quiet music to swirl around to!
• Play a game together – we have board games that don’t get played often because we’re typically getting out kid favorites like “Yeti in the Spaghetti!” and “Pop the Pig!” (both of which I highly recommend for little ones) but pull out Sorry! or Monopoly or Scrabble if you’ve got them around. Likewise, there are Ipad apps that allow for two players you could look into, we particularly like Carcasonne since it syncs between our Ipads and we can play across the room when we don’t feel like joining in watching Power Rangers with the kiddo. (Side note: I never feel like watching Power Rangers)
• Ask new questions…or even old questions…now that we’ve been around each other six years, do we really know everything about that other person? Chances are, probably not, and conversation starters are easy to find when you’re on the ‘net. Sometimes discussing the news….isn’t the spark that you need.
• Recreate something – your wedding, a proposal, favorite date, a trip that you wanted to take but can’t. The sky is the limit here, it just takes some creativity and thought to at least unearth a little of something that was in the past or something you’re missing in the big outside world at the moment.
• Make something or find a project together. Doesn’t have to be strenuous or taxing, but puzzles are fun, craft projects or even construction if you have the supplies but couldn’t find the time are places you could revive a little one on one time.

Here’s the key to some of this…make it intentional. Whether that’s using words and communicating that this was something you wanted to do together, or making sure your body language means “I want to be in this space with you”…don’t let things happen by happenstance all the time, and insure the “special” is conveyed. Sometimes we get so used to literally being in the same space we forget that we chose to be here. Not that assuming someone will be around forever is the best notion, but it also has strength in it at times….just not, in my opinion, romance….I feel like when you’re making a gesture, because my brain is elsewhere and calculating about a million things to do, plan and achieve…I need stopped and reminded that “I’m doing this special for you.”

So go do those things people…and let me know how it goes.