I want to tell you the sweetest little story–literally since it involves cookies!
It doesn’t really have a moral or an eye-opening epiphany; it’s simply a story for story’s sake because sometimes we all need a little ‘sweetness’ in our lives.
I hope that’s okay with you!?
I went away this weekend to a women’s retreat. I’ll work on telling you about that in my ‘spare time’ (**insert rolls of maniacal laughter). It was a good time, and I had some pretty interesting thoughts about you, pilot wife life, God, and women in general. I also had the unexpected opportunity to get to know two pilot wives and a flight attendant a lot bit better, which is a nice bonus. Anytime we can gather as women and/or pilot wives to breathe life into one another is extraordinary.
Plus a bunch of little house elves (who looked a lot like teenaged boys in Young Life tee-shirts) kept magically causing plates piled high with yummy food and a ridiculously endless supply of coffee and chocolate to appear everywhere we went. To say I spent the weekend walking [jittering] around super caffeinated would be a bold understatement. Here’s proof.
WOAH!
Too. Much. Caffeine.
Anyway, my amazing pilot kept our two kiddos while I was away. If you could glean one teeny-tiny piece of advice from this particular story, I hope it would be to lay off the caffeine.
I’m just kidding (sort of). It would actually be to allow your husband to bond with your kids without hovering and nagging. He’s more likely to feel motivated to give you time away if you get this important point. I don’t care if they ate chocolate cake for every meal, learned to play poker, and did oil painting in their Sunday best.
They lived. The end. Nothing left to know. Just turn the other cheek and bite your tongue, ladies.
Seriously, give it a shot.
While at the retreat they had given us these baskets chock full of treats (and I do mean FULL) and told us to take what we didn’t gorge on home. One of the items in the basket was a package of Milano cookies.
Now many years ago plus a few more, I remembered my pilot telling me in passing how much he liked those particular cookies, but we have never bought them once in our 17 years together. I have no idea why. However, seeing that little package brought that distant conversation rushing back.
And I thought to myself like any ah-mazing wife how sweet of me it would be to take them home as a tiny token of my appreciation of his willingness to watch the children while I gorged on chocolate and caffeine.
Upon my return home yesterday, he was laying on our bed while I unpacked my suitcase, which by the way felt totally upside down and backwards as the wife of a traveling spouse. I proudly fished out the two packs of Milanos I had snagged [no shame people] and tossed them triumphantly on the bed beside him. “Thanks for watching the kids this weekend! Would you like a little treat?”
His reaction was not what I expected though. You know, like sonnets of deep adoration and swooning at the overwhelming revelation of my wifely generosity…because, duh, Milanos.
But noooooo! What I actually got was an awkward, really confused look coupled with some unexpected, weird questions. “Ummm…what is that? Where did you get them? Why are you giving them to me?”
Dang, honey! Thanks for bursting my wife-of-the-year bubble with a quickness!
Geez.
I did that wife thing where instead of just listening to him I started running all of the worst case scenarios through my overactive brain (I seriously have to lay off the caffeine). Maybe he was mad that I took them from the retreat for him? Or…oh my gosh! Maybe I remembered the long-ago conversation wrong (after all I can barely remember what I ate for lunch some days) and he actually hated them because they were something his horrible ex-girlfriend used to buy him?!?
Sometimes I wish the creative writer part of me would just shut the heck up.
Perplexed, I meekly explained that I had gotten them as a treat for him because I [thought I] remembered him liking them and we never had them at home.
And he started to laugh. LAUGH!
“I love you!” he exclaimed. “Look in your nightstand drawer! Go ahead, do it.”
I pulled open the drawer and found that he had stuffed it full of secret treats for me to find during his next trip…but not just any treats. You guessed it–
Milano cookies!!
“Your office desk drawer is full of them too!” he laughed.
How. Sweet. Is. That.
I started giggling too. It’s just so darn cute. My pilot and I had gotten each other the exact same extra-special treat at the exact same time–a treat we have never bought in 17 years of marriage. I mean, what!?!
It’s like our hearts were beating in sync even though we were far apart.
People, that’s love.
Marriage? Well, sometimes [a lot of times] it’s hard. Sometimes [a lot of times] we have to choose to love each other when we don’t like each other much at all. Sometimes there will be turbulence to traverse and engine failures to overcome.
But if you fight hard, love harder, and keep your eyes focused on one another…
You can still find an incomparable sweetness in your marriage.
Like unexpected cookies in a drawer.
I love you, aviation family. Keep it sweet.
Tailwinds.
~Angelia (a fellow pilot wife)
CHECK OUT THE JUST WINGING IT SERIES BY ANGELIA GRIFFIN HERE!
