The Honest Conversation Mark and I Finally Had

Last night Mark and I had a conversation we should have had three years ago. Maybe five. Maybe at the wedding rehearsal in 2017. We had it on the back porch in our pajamas at nine-fifteen on a Wednesday, with the candle going and the cicadas going and Biscuit asleep on the porch boards with her chin on my foot.

The conversation was: what do we actually want the next five years to look like?

We have talked about the next month. We have talked about the next paycheck. We have talked about whether Emma should do the summer reading program at the library (yes) and whether Noah should try a real big-boy bed in the fall (probably). We have not talked about five years. Not honestly. Not on purpose.

I started it. I said, 'I want to ask you something that's going to sound big.' Mark put his beer down, which is the Mark version of bracing yourself. I said, 'In five years, where do we live and what do we do?'

He thought about it. He said, 'Here. With you. Doing what I'm doing.' And then he was quiet for a long minute and he said, 'But I want to be the one who runs the crew. Not just on it. Running it.' I have known this man for eleven years and I have never heard him say that out loud. Eleven years.

Then I said my version. I said, 'I want the candle thing to be a real thing. Not Etsy. Not just side income. A small line, with a few stores carrying it, and enough income that I can leave Miller's if I want to or stay if I want to.' Saying it out loud made me feel like I was confessing to a crime.

And then we just sat there. The candle on the railing was the lavender vanilla one — Porch Light, it is becoming our marriage candle. And we talked, for the first time in nine years, about whether we want a third baby (we don't, we don't think, we are deciding), about whether we will ever take the kids to the ocean (yes, by Emma's tenth birthday), about whether we move out of this house someday or stay (stay, probably forever, because the maple in the front yard is ours now), about whether his back is going to hold up to fifteen more years on a site (he doesn't know).

It was not a fight. It was not even hard. It was just true.

I think the reason we don't have these conversations is that we are afraid the other person's truth will hurt. Mostly it doesn't. Mostly the other person has been waiting for us to ask.

Run this morning: twelve minutes of straight jogging. I did not believe it when the British man said 'good job' at the end. I believed it ten minutes later when my legs reminded me. Kettle squats at three. Picked up the kids. Spaghetti, again, because we are who we are.

Mark home at five-fifty. Kissed me at the stove. Said, 'I've been thinking about last night.' Said, 'Me too.' That's enough for one day. Almost six. Talk tomorrow. — Lucy