The sun is peeking through the boughs of the palm branches as I gaze through the skylights above the bed.  With no bugs to speak of, the front door is wide open, revealing the table and benches where we had leftovers from a wonderful meal the other night.  The breeze coming from off of the ocean is cool and unobstructed on the 3rd floor patio, not too warm, not too cold.  It’s like a simple little piece of heaven, just for the two of us.

We’re very fortunate and we know it.  While this is certainly not the Ritz or somewhere in an exotic country, our little vacation is a well earned six days of just us.  No meetings, no drill writing, no separate rooms in the same home working away on the next project.  Just having fun together as friends has made this a wonderful experience.

It’s so easy to take your spouse or significant other for granted when both of you are ridiculously busy, doing very worthwhile things for others. but ignoring each other in the process.  The problem is that taking each other for granted means that feelings change – you stop making sure the other person is ok and has things they need or checking to make sure things are going well.  You get up, you work, you come home and prepare a meal and watch some TV or work some more and then you go to bed.  It can seriously hurt the relationship in a very subtle, quiet way.

Before we left on this little trip, my husband said he wanted us to get reacquainted again and we have.  With no one but each other to talk to and interact with, we have to communicate to each other about what we want to do and where we went to go.  We have to compromise about places to eat and things we want to see.  And we take joy in watching each other experience new things.

Maybe this has been made easier to do in a place that is a bit more quiet and everyone here is in vacation mode.  Tomorrow morning we leave for downtown LA to do some more “touristy” things.  Maybe it’s a good way to transition back to the craziness that seems to be our lives most of the time.

I certainly know how fortunate we are. We have worked hard to have some means to be able to have these experiences and we have learned to make each other a priority often enough that we keep the relationship alive.  After nearly 38 years, he is still my best friend and I love doing things with him.  We come from pretty different backgrounds and so it has taken a while for us to warm up to doing some things the other likes to do, but that makes life an adventure.  And life is too short not to have adventures.

Today our adventures consisted of riding a 15 passenger Super RIB.  For you and me that means a really fast boat, low to the water and so fast that the front end of the boat goes up in the air.  We left the water many times and hit it hard, splashing and making everyone, kids and adults alike, squeal and laugh with delight.  Tonight we’ll slow it down by taking a short walk down to the beach to watch the sun set over the ocean. I will be the end of a marvelous day with just us.