Did you ever fear when you got married that you would miss dating?  That you might long for the excitement of going out with someone new and different – the butterflies, the joy of a shared moment, smiles exchanged, hands held?

I will confess – I did worry about it.  It wasn’t a worry that kept me up at night or made me question whether or not I should marry Lee, but I did think about it some in the months leading up to our marriage.  I was barely 22 when we got married.  I was very young and I knew that by marrying so young I was giving up a bit of “life.” In fact, when Lee proposed to me I was only eighteen months out of my teens.

In short, I was a baby.

Of course, I didn’t think that at the time.  I felt more than grown up and I was mature enough to step into marriage.  But looking back at it now, 22 seems so very young.

So yes – a couple of times during our engagement, I wondered if I would miss dating.  I worried that maybe the thrill of the chase would be over and I would never get to experience that excitement again.

Now that I’m so old (eyeroll), though, I have a little perspective.  First of all, I’m happy to say that I still get excited to go out on a date with my husband.  How naive I was to think that marriage would squeeze an ever tightening noose around the neck of excitement.  If anything, I get more excited to be alone with my husband now than I did back in those early days when I took for granted the endless alone time we had.  My husband can still make me giggle and he still gives me goosebumps when he comes out all dressed to the  nines and dapper.  That didn’t die when we said “I do.”

But, I also now have the opportunity to date someone else.  And going out with this young man gives me a new and different kind of excitement.  When he smiles at me, my stomach flutters and my heart skips a beat when he holds my hand in public.  And he’s only six years old.  I never imagined it could be so fun to date my child.  Seeing his eyes light up at the prospect of having alone time with me is better than any new romance I ever experienced in college.

I also get to date my daughter.  Tonight she and I went swimming at the gym.  Just the two of us.  We giggled and laughed.  We talked directly to one another without interruption.  We played and splashed and hugged and kissed.  And I had the time of my life.  And soon Landon will be old enough to date – although I have to say that the alone moments he and I get when the older two are at school are priceless and precious.

So gone are the feelings and fears that life will somehow be monotonous with the same person day in and day out.  I experience a lot of feelings on a day to day basis and I can guarantee you, monotony is not one of them.  I am dating more now than I ever did before and while Lee and I don’t do the best job of carving out alone time with one another, the fact is we don’t really have to.  I’m perfectly content sitting right here with him as he plays LEGO Star Wars on the Wii and I type away on Lucy.  I don’t need the fancy dates that I needed back when I was but a whipper snapper.

I just need my husband by my side and my children close by and all is well.

Although a glass of wine would be nice too…

Excuse me.