Love Letter to a Reluctant Traveler
This is the first of two posts by Melanie encouraging couples to travel together. Keep an eye out (or subscribe) for the next one coming soon.
So, maybe you and your better half are in a slump. You feel like you’ve tried to plead your case for a vacation, but your partner, in answer, has escalated from stolid indifference to eye rolling, whining to panic. When the emotions and excuses have faded, you’ve found yourself still in your home…waiting.
You remain convinced that making a plan to go somewhere, whether it’s close by or several time zones away, is the answer to rediscovering your passion — maybe even the sound of your own laugh.
If your partner could only see that it’s important to take time for yourselves, away from work, family, friends and chores, they might save not just your love but also their own life. Because if they don’t agree to take you away on a trip, for a few days, a week, or more…you may have to kill them as they lay sleeping.
Before it comes to that, consider handing them this letter.
_____________________________________________________________________________
Dear Husband/Wife/Lover/Significant Other/Beloved/Pain in My A–:
So, there we were last night: On the couch again, watching TV/doing the bills/sewing/folding the laundry/you playing a video game, me reading a book. After a while, we found ourselves staring into space, too exhausted from the work day to summon conversation…or even put ice cream in a bowl.
I contemplated getting your attention and showing you an article I saw in the newspaper/a magazine/online, about a place so magical that it can’t possibly be real. But what if it is real? And what if it’s out there all the time we’re here, sitting on the couch and letting our lives tick by?
We’re both on our (insert enormous number here) straight day of work without a real break. Cleaning the gutters or attending a boring client’s barbecue doesn’t really count as a break, does it? The last time we had a whole day to ourselves, we snuggled up in bed and within ten minutes, you fell asleep in the middle of your own sentence (I’m sure it would have been a good story).
The routine of our lives has begun to remind me of those sad ponies at carnivals that carry children in a slow circle, wearing a groove into the dust until the music stops and someone’s crying to get down.
I’ve asked you to go away with me before, it seems like a thousand times. I’ve begged, wheedled, left post-it notes in your drawers/the fridge/in your car. I’ve blocked out time on your calendar and climbed online to book a hotel only to find you’d unblocked the time and scheduled more stuff for work. To be fair, you apologized about it…but on both sides, it has seemed like we’re engaged in subterfuge.
Then there was the time we actually managed to plan a trip, a cozy few days in our own mountain chalet/beach cottage/lake house. It was flu season and I urged you to take vitamins, get rest, work from home for the day. You didn’t. The day before, you fell like Humpty Dumpty off a wall, and there went my dream of romance in a wave of Nyquil.
I know getting sick wasn’t your fault, but it would have been so lovely if you could have said, even once, “Hey, what ever happened to that trip we were going to take? Want to try again now that I’m well?”
Here’s the thing: I miss your touch. I miss breeze. I miss sitting outdoors for no reason, or feeling our feet buried in sand/snow/eiderdown. I miss being actively next to you for a sunrise or a sunset. I miss the concept of a day where we have plenty of time, no responsibilities, and got a great night’s sleep the night before. I can’t remember the last time where something unusual/beautiful/hilarious happened and we absolutely had to point it out to each other right then rather than telling the tale three weeks later when we’re finally in the same place at the same time.
I want to know that you miss these things, too. I want you to know that there’s no need to miss them anymore — we can go find them just around the next bend.
Please allow me to start the conversation, to suggest a place to go, to show you what I’ve found out there that would allow us to join a different version of the world for awhile…and just might have the power to give us back to one another.
You there — come away with me.
About the author:Melanie Waldman writes about the ups, downs and ins and outs of travelling as a couple. Together with her husband Adam, she has travelled through much of North America and Europe. Visit her blog: Travels With Two.
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Posted by Melanie Waldman from Travels With Two on December 16th, 2008 in Articles.
#1Richard » December 17th, 2008 at 6:47 am:
That hits the nail right on the head. It’s a conversation that I suspect so many people wish they could have.
#2Ant » December 18th, 2008 at 10:22 pm:
I think I’d need a holiday after a letter like that… with the lads! haha. A great concept for a piece of writing though, and brilliantly executed. The theoretical sender sounds like he/she is better off without the recipient though.
I think a witty post-it note on the fridge would suffice ‘Dear You… the milks gone mouldy x’
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