Sunday
Yesterday was an all-around perfect day. C let me sleep in until 7:30am while he started the morning with the kids. We had a nice family breakfast then headed to the beach to meet up with friends and a bunch of C’s family who came in from out of town. After a beautiful day at the ocean, a 10 on the Perfect Beach Weather scale in spite of predicted thunderstorms, we spent the early evening with family back at our house.
When everyone left and the boys were down, C and I plopped on the couch to phubb per usual. He was playing an online card game and I was surfing social media.
I decided to break the monotony and offer that we play a real card game.
The last time we played Gin (our favorite game together) was when I’d undergone knee surgery and was recovering. C used it as a way to distract me from the pain so I could hold out the doctor’s required 4 hours until the next pain killer. The first week or two were excruciating and C was up at all hours of the night making sure I wasn’t popping pills too soon.
So now, playing cards has that loving tonality to it, as well as the history of many many times we’d played together before that during our happier years.
I didn’t think about that when I offered it – I was just thinking that we both needed to get our noses out of our phones and interact.
Our interactions lately are so strained; either we’re arguing, or we’re unhappy with the other, or we’re talking logistics/money/kids which is of course, not the most fun.
As we sat back and got back into the routine of quiet card playing, I found myself taking a deep breath and relaxing. No words exchanged, we were barely even looking at each other. But the interaction was good…dare I say it, even meditative. What little we did say was related to the game, back to our usual teasing and strategizing, with a little flirting thrown in.
Maybe we need more card games in our life.
PS. I want to add that C has been off the booze for the last two days due to a recurrence of what he’s now calling pancreatitis (although undiagnosed): horrible pain in his abdomen and back that gets worse at night, not related to stomach or gastric upset according to him. This has happened a few times, each time lasting a week or so – with him swearing off the booze for 2-3 days to recover, which seems to help. I wish he would see a doctor about it, but when I asked if he’d mentioned it at his last physical, he said it had been years (!!!), and no he hadn’t talked with a doc about it.