"Let's choose us."

This week on Mom.me I wrote about Wednesday night and how, on the way to the black-tie "casino night" holiday party, we decided to flip a bitch and go our own way...

...We used to do that often. We’d get in the car with no plans and end up somewhere. In those three months before I got pregnant, we spent our time breaking every plan we tried to make. We spent an entire week getting lost back in the summer of 2004, ending up in Big Sur, and finally San Francisco, on the couch of an old friend of his.

Our life doesn’t allow for that kind of spontaneity anymore, so last night, as we drove in circles through Brentwood, Westwood, Beverly Hills, looking for something new and exciting that we had never seen or experienced, it felt like … well … then.

It took over an hour of driving before we settled on a place on Robertson. It was small and cozy and overflowing with very old, very well-dressed couples. A real departure from the usual Hollywood scene where old pairs with young and young pairs with very young.

“I think we managed to find the only place in Los Angeles where old men have old wives.”

We assumed we’d be completely overdressed but on the contrary—Hal was the only man in the room without a pocket square...

...We spent the rest of the night side by side, in a restaurant whose name I have already forgotten, on a corner, not too far from our house—a corner we didn’t even know existed until last night.

And we drank our drinks and ate our food and shared dessert and watched and talked and laughed and listened and agreed that THIS was exactly what we needed...  

After ten years of marriage (next month) sometimes the only way to keep the fire burning is to go back to the early days and do it up like new. Date nights are one thing, but ditching the plan for the un-plan is equally important. It is for us, anyway. Getting in the car without a real destination... or, you know, changing it last minute...

And stumbling upon that little restaurant on the corner of the street was like stumbling upon the book of answers and realizing that (duh!) that shit's empty.

There are no answers.

We don't know where we're going to end up tonight or tomorrow or next year, but knowing that we can sit side by side and people watch together, rightnowinthisverymoment, well...  that's exciting.

So is the ever changing view.

(You can read the story in its entirety, here.)

 Cheers... 

GGC