Wednesday, August 02, 2006
Hidden Aging
My wife and I are both introverts. For the most part we’re quite happy in each other’s company. Most of our interests are similar and it makes those precious times alone easy, as we can always find something we enjoy. That’s not to say we don’t like being social, its just the nature of our lives tends to mean we have to organise things to be with other people, and sometimes that’s too much like hard work.
Neither of us are big on parties. We both do the work doos, or go if a friend has organised something, but we never organise ones for ourselves. Particularly for birthdays. No, birthdays are meant to be quiet sedate affairs, maybe a cake with the kids, but certainly no major public affair.
We’ve been together long enough to have hit some of the “milestone” birthdays, and both of us have been quite content for these to be almost forgotten. Aging is bad enough without celebrating it. I mean really, do you want the world to know you’ve aged? Isn’t it obvious enough?
There is one thing we like to do with birthday’s though. Its our one excuse to get away with each other. We don’t like holidays away from the kids. A lot of our friends with family do that. I suppose I can intellectually understand that, particularly for full time mothers, but we both work away from the house. Holidays are times to be WITH our kids, not away from them.
Still, the odd stolen night away just being adults has its pleasures. We’ve used one of our birthdays a year to get away. To have a wicked weekend with good food and wine and a private room hidden away where we can sleep in and, ehemm… do other things.
Its that time, my wife is officially aging another year. So away we go, a quiet hidden away country hotel. For an afternoon, evening and morning we get to just be with each other. There’s massage in the spa organised, afternoon tea in the garden and a bang up meal. The place has a good cellar and organises a tasting to choose the wine for the meal.
I’m very excited, though I’m so tired I may fall asleep in my soup with a bit of wine in my belly…
Neither of us are big on parties. We both do the work doos, or go if a friend has organised something, but we never organise ones for ourselves. Particularly for birthdays. No, birthdays are meant to be quiet sedate affairs, maybe a cake with the kids, but certainly no major public affair.
We’ve been together long enough to have hit some of the “milestone” birthdays, and both of us have been quite content for these to be almost forgotten. Aging is bad enough without celebrating it. I mean really, do you want the world to know you’ve aged? Isn’t it obvious enough?
There is one thing we like to do with birthday’s though. Its our one excuse to get away with each other. We don’t like holidays away from the kids. A lot of our friends with family do that. I suppose I can intellectually understand that, particularly for full time mothers, but we both work away from the house. Holidays are times to be WITH our kids, not away from them.
Still, the odd stolen night away just being adults has its pleasures. We’ve used one of our birthdays a year to get away. To have a wicked weekend with good food and wine and a private room hidden away where we can sleep in and, ehemm… do other things.
Its that time, my wife is officially aging another year. So away we go, a quiet hidden away country hotel. For an afternoon, evening and morning we get to just be with each other. There’s massage in the spa organised, afternoon tea in the garden and a bang up meal. The place has a good cellar and organises a tasting to choose the wine for the meal.
I’m very excited, though I’m so tired I may fall asleep in my soup with a bit of wine in my belly…
