Cheap Red Wine Life

Chocolate chip pancakes sizzle on the griddle yesterday morning. Ten years into this parenting thing and I just now found out my daughters love chocolate chip pancakes.

Well then. Let’s make them every day, I think. At least they’ll agree on breakfast (one likes eggs, one likes waffles of course).

I stand in the kitchen, this small rented kitchen, and flip pancakes with my spatula while my husband does his “husband” things of getting ready for work in the morning.

He says hello to the golden retriever. He finds his shoes from the garage. He ties them while reading the news on his iPad.

And I make pancakes for our daughters.

He grabs his keys, his computer bag and he kisses me quickly in passing on the way out the door.

“Will you be home tonight?” I ask as he brushes by me.

“I think so. I hope so.” He works hard, I know. And I know also that I don’t tell him enough that he works hard. Against his ADD that screams at him every hour of every day, he fights to work for us.

“Did you walk the dog?” I call. This time he’s almost to his car.

“YES! LOVE YOU!” A faceless husband yells back. He’s already been launched into the world for today.

And that is it. I serve the pancakes. I butter, syrup them and place them in front of little girls who have gotten their own milk to drink.

Wordlessly I pass by them and open up my computer to put the things in order that I must for the day to begin.

Our lives are so normal for normal Americans and our marriage is so normal for normal married people. Sixteen years and counting, we are. Eight and a half of that is living post-affair, post-recovery, post-gigantic problems.

And for the most part we live in peace and also, in normal life.

In the first post-affair year we grappled to be close, like newlyweds, to hold hands and to fight for time together. We forgave and healed and made love and wept and loved each other very, very well. In the vacuum of what we think we might lose is the intense desire for that thing once again.

And now, it is not the same.

For a long time I wondered if we’d lost our love again, if we’d been lazy or negligent. Why aren’t we fighting to be near one another any more? Is this what it is and is this what the future is as well?

No. We haven’t lost our love. We’ve just begun to settle into the realness of living. Of fighting for that love STILL when chocolate chip pancakes need to be made and dogs need to be walked.

And that’s okay.

He is late in getting home {like normal} and I’m not frustrated for once.

{Maybe this is progress, I think. Maybe this is me really beginning to understand him and see him for who he is.}

We eat spaghetti and garlic bread and we have to break up a sibling argument in the middle of dinner. We share a bottle of cheap red wine at the table after the girls have gone out to play outside in the summer evening.

“I love you.” He says.

“And I love you.” I tell him.

We talk about the kids and about our families and about work and writing and everything else. And this is life. This chocolate chip pancake, cheap red wine life is real.

It may not be exciting, but we are thankful we’re still here.

My name is Sarah Markley, and I Am A Prodigal.

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Sarah Markley is a full time mother, speaker and writer. She lives in Southern California with her two daughters, Hope (10) and Naomi (6) and her husband, Chad and just celebrated 16 years of marriage. She blogs at sarahmarkley.com and speaks regularly for conferences, MOPs meetings and church groups. She is a staff writer for (in)courage and a monthly columnist for A Deeper Story. She believes wholeheartedly in second chances, radical grace and the belief that everyone has a story to tell.

[photo: krossbow, Creative Commons]