A moment for each other

We drove up the snowy, winding road towards the cozy A-frame cabin. After a long week of work, seeing the cabin was a feeling of relief. This trip was long overdue. Have you ever worked so hard to meet all your deadlines that you couldn’t even find the time to sleep? So tired that you might as well be running on gasoline. The countless hours working at the office, under piles of countless demands, finally there is freedom just up the road. I’m not even sure I have any fumes left.

“We’re here.” Leo says.

I look over to see a smile peaking through his tired face. Sadly, it’s been a long week for the both of us. We pulled into the parking area by the cabin, and he turns the car off. The cabin waiting for us on the other side of our doors.

“Are you excited?” I ask.

“I’m so tired Mia, I think I might be dying.”

I grab his hand and give it a squeeze.

“You feel warm and alive to me.” I say jokingly. “Hopefully you know that I appreciate you driving us here. I know you were tired too. But if you don’t know that I am thankful for you, I am thankful and appreciative”.

“Hopefully this is worth it, it was so much time on the road for just a weekend”. He says with a sigh.

We get out the car to grab our bags and the food we bought so that we wouldn’t have to leave at all to go to the store. Hopefully the cabin has everything we need. The nearest store was about thirty minutes away, and we wanted to be able to enjoy every minute of the cabin experience. He puts his free arm around me and gives me a quick squeeze as we walk to the front of the cabin together.

The cabin owner emailed us ahead of time to give us the lockbox code to get the key to the cabin. He enters the combination to retrieve the key and unlocks the door to let us in. I begin to feel a little nervous not knowing if it’ll be what we expected.

“Here we go”, he says.

Stepping inside immediately the nerves just disappear. The cabin isn’t completely dark when we walk in. There are those dim electric candles around the cabin giving off a warm and romantic ambiance. This is exactly what we signed up for. We walk around and just feel everything around the cabin. The sectional couch with its pillow soft material that I can already see us falling asleep on. The cabin is decked out with all the amenities and supplies one could wish for. The hot tub on the balcony looks like it might get some use. The stand mixer on the kitchen counter looks like the perfect tool for someone to just start baking some cookies to bring even more sweetness and warmth. We drop our bags in the room and put the food in the kitchen.

“Woah, this place is incredible”, he says.

“Exactly what we needed”, I reply.

“What should we do first?”

“Do you need to rest?” I ask.

“No, resting,” he replies, “We need to make full use of our time here.”

On one of the counters by him I noticed something that looks like a gift bag.

“Leo what is that?” I ask.

“Hmm.”

He grabs the card out of the bag addressed to ‘The Roses’ and reads it.

“Welcome to our cozy cabin. Congratulations on your recent nuptials and we are happy that you chose our cabin to come and celebrate. Hopefully you didn’t find the journey to be too long but in case you did, please find the items in the bag to help your stay be even better”. Placing the card down he starts to open the bag.

“Did you tell them when you reserved this place we just got married?” I ask.

He looks at me. “Yeah, I said we were in a much-needed getaway since we hadn’t had the chance to do anything to celebrate”.

He starts pulling things out of the bag. A bottle of champagne, chocolate, a journal for couples to fill out, and a cabin shaped picture frame.

Grabbing the journal, I flip through to see what it has on the different pages. There are questions about our goals and what we want to accomplish together, what our favorite qualities are about each other. How we see the next few years together. It starts to get me teary eyed.

“This is so thoughtful,” I say, my voice quivering a little bit.

“Hey are you ok? Come here”. He pulls me in close for a hug, and I wrap my arms around him.

“We’ve been so busy, it’s just nice to finally be able to relax and get away together”.

“Yeah, I know both our schedules have been ridiculously busy. We’re here now, so let’s make the most of it. So how about we change and go take a dip in the hot tub…mmm. Come on let’s go.” He guides me to the room so we can change.

The sun peeks through the bedroom’s full-length windows. Last night was so relaxing, it’s hard to believe we fell asleep in the room and not on that comfortable couch. For the most part we were too tired to really talk about anything, hopefully today we might be able to talk about things we haven’t had the chance to talk about due to our schedules. I smell food, Leo must have gotten a head start. I clean-up and go to the kitchen and join him.

On the counter is a beautiful stack of pancakes and Leo is making eggs. He smiles when he sees me come up to him. He briefly stops making the eggs to hand me a cup of coffee.

“Mia, I think we need a hot tub.”

“I cannot believe you’re up already”, I respond reaching out for the coffee.

“Well, you know that I’m an early riser.”

“Honestly, where on earth would we put the hot tub?” I ask.

“There might have to be some shuffling, but we can make it work.” He smirks.

Our small apartment cannot fit a hot tub. If we get lucky though, maybe we can get a bigger place.

“What about the dogs?”

“They would want us to get the hot tub”.

“Well with some more time in the cabin, this coffee and that food, you might be able to convince me.” I respond, but the idea has me laughing.

The way we are currently operating hasn’t been the most sustainable. We’ve only been married for a few months, and it has just been chaos with work. Neither of us can seem to find the time for just regular conversation. With the long hours, some nights we can’t even eat together. When we got married, we were so excited to do so many things together, but with work things have just gotten away from us.

“Mia, this trip I promise is just the beginning. Everything has been so chaotic; I know this weekend trip was long overdue. Partially my fault since it took me so long to free up time.”

We both move to the table with our food and coffee.

“Sometimes you forget that you can take a break from work. We don’t always just have to be working.”

“I’m not the only one working long hours”. Leo says.

“That’s true, but it just feels like we don’t have a good routine right now. It’s not a bad thing to be busy, but I hoped that we would see more of each other since we just got married.”

“Definitely seeing more of our coworkers right now.”

“Leo, if we just make more of a conscious effort to take more time for each other, I think things will move smoothly. We’re here soaking up this weekend. While I can’t guarantee we buy a hot tub after all of this, I do think it’s what we needed.”

He gives me a quick kiss.

“I hear what you’re saying, and we’ll work on it together. So how about we finish this breakfast and then we can tackle some of the questions in the journal.”

I nod in agreement and dig into my pancakes.

When our cabin stay comes to an end it’s hard to pack up and leave. Leo and I accomplished a lot in our short stay here. The cabin owner’s champagne did not go to waste, nor did the chocolate. Leo finished it when I wasn’t looking, can’t tame that sweet tooth. Somehow, we managed to make our way through the journal, some pages still left unanswered, but the way forward looks clearer and brighter. One of our first plans when we get home is to get a better handle on our careers and schedules.

“So, we’re all packed up Mia”. Leo says, grabbing my hand.

“Guess that means it’s time to go?”

“Mmmhmm”.

“Want me to drive?” I offer.

“No, not after what happened last time.”

“You’re not funny”.

“I think I am”, he jokes.

“Come on let’s go”.

“One day, we’ll get that hot tub.” Leo says.

As we slowly drive off, it’s sad to see the cabin in the rearview mirror, but it was such a great experience. Next time, we’ll have to stay longer.