Meal

After the overnight there was one other thing to do and as luck would have it the opportunity opened very quickly- yesterday. As I said in my last post my wife took the kids up north after the overnight but on Sunday night she arrived back home on her own. Her parents had kindly offered to watch the kids for a few nights so for the start of this week we are in the unusual position of having no kids at home. Freedom!

Dos Amigos. My wife has a good memory. A lot better than me. Strangely though she forgot the name of the restuarant we were supposed to go to for our anniversary. I can't remember which one. I have a feeling it was our second but I could be wrong. It was though up in Perth and we were staying at the Holiday Inn with a table booked for a Mexican restaurant we had been at once before and liked. Maybe I have more reason to remember. Her parents were watching the children, or child, that night too and we were getting ready in the hotel room. I remember I felt ill- really ill. I did not want to go. I did not know what was up and I knew I was going to ruin the night if I did not go but...I ruined the night.I told my  wife I felt ill.  It was the truth. I knew there was more to it but I didn't know what. At that time I had no idea what I was experiencing. She was rightly annoyed. She called and cancelled. We ended up walking the streets and getting food from a service station. We went to bed silently and that was that. Not a memory I cared to hold on to.

So  it was time,  long overdue, to have that meal belatedly. With the kids gone my wife booked a table at a restaurant she had been to and enjoyed. We went there. We actually walked there. Its over a mile there which is something in the past I would not even have done never mind sit and have a meal before going home. We did it.  She loved it. I eventually  did after getting past that first half hour which was sheer hell. It was really just a case of holding on until  the anxiety finally died down. It does eventually. But it was not perseverence as such. It was a case more of reminding myself to step back from the negative loop of escaping I had created. Stepping back long enough to let it pass. 

A long overdue meal had and hopefully not the last. Its my birthday in December, anniversary in February and my wife's birthday in April. All we need now are more babysitters! After the meal we went to a pub across the road and had a few beers there.  It was a really good night. One I thought for a long time would never come but it has and now  I am looking at what to challenge next.