Conversation

We were supposed to go to the beach this past weekend to celebrate my dad's b-day. We did not make it, at the last minute I decided that we needed to stay home this weekend. There were things that needed to be taken care of before we took our household on the road. My parents understood and we will be heading down this coming weekend instead.

One of the things with my husband and I is that we are not big conversationalist. We have never been. The most comfortable thing about our relationship since the beginning is that we never felt the need to have a conversation just to entertain each other. We could each go off and do our own thing and then come back to center and everything was great. We match in this regard. We had our conversations, but it wasn't the be all and end all.

Fast foward to several children later, a full-time job, homeschooling, chauffering to and from activities, and suddenly there are no more conversations at all. There is no time. Words, phrases are spoken to each other only for the need to relay information. Topics for conversation get shuffled back to the recesses of the mind for later, when there is more time, when I have more energy, etc.

Without the conversation we lose touch with who our partner is, what changes are occuring in him/her. Major decisions are made by one because we don't have time to double check with the other. I have never thought that I needed these conversations, you know just put the kids to bed and sit and talk about the day, political occurrences, etc. But, if we can't talk about those things then how can we talk about the big things like, family finances and personal feelings.

Summer is the most stressful season for us. DH works two jobs during the summer and is busy at both, I tend to be traveling with the kids from one family member to another. When we do see each other, both of us are so burned out by conversations with other people that we just can't get in gear to give each other anything on that front. So, can we just say that conversation in our household had taken a backseat to summer time life.

We took the weekend off from family engagements and we tried to jump start our communication again this weekend. We untangled some cross communications and made some committments to each other. We also managed to find someone to watch all three of our kids and made it out to a nice sit down dinner. Something we will not be able to do again in the near future.

But, we also learned that conversation isn't just nice entertainment. It's necessary.

Peace,

Amy