you remind me of a Sunday
The Dungeons & Dragons shed smelled a little mousey.
Since we haven’t had D&D since the fall, I’m sure the mice (I just typed mouses at first, so that tells you how my brain is doing) reigned supreme in the shed behind our friend Shawn’s house. My husband Loui is the Dungeon Master, which means he plans and leads the campaigns, and after several years of DMing, he went on hiatus for the last nine months or so.
Yesterday, as Loui set up his computer screens, I said, “You know what? This is the first D&D session since I started my newsletter. So I’ll have to adjust to that.”
Did I adjust? No; I simply forgot to send a newsletter—and I only realized it about midday on Monday.
Today feels an awful lot like a Sunday, don’t you think? Let’s pretend.
In September 2023, when Loui and I first started dating, I read three books. I’m not taking the time to check every single month, but I’m pretty sure that’s my least-productive reading month in the last nine years, if not in my entire life. We joke that Loui was a distraction—but it’s not really a joke. My sweet new boyfriend absolutely occupied time that I would have otherwise spent reading.
In my end-of-year reading wrap-up, I wrote:
In some ways, this year felt like a bad reading year for me— I read dozens fewer books than I did last year, and I could feel throughout the year that I was spending less time reading.
If I wasn’t spending my time reading, what was I doing? My overwhelming feeling for 2023 is that I was building and being built up by a community— friends, family, coworkers who laughed and cried with me, supported me through getting my master’s degree and a promotion and additional bookshelves, and who, yes, sometimes distracted me from reading. I spent more time eating, going to movies, dancing and traveling with friends and family this year than I think I ever have before, and that made for a beautiful year.
In that same spirit, do I dislike that I missed a deadline (even one that I set for myself) and didn’t get my planned writing done yesterday? Yes. I hope to actually adjust in future weeks so it doesn’t happen again. But would I trade a promptly sent newsletter for watching my husband go back to a hobby that he loves? For listening to his silly character voices? For laughing with our friends as we brutally kill a bunch of bad guys in our campaign?
No, I wouldn’t trade that for anything.
Besides, with Loui by my side, I know that everything—including my personal goals and our shared hobbies—just keeps getting better and better. How do I know? This year—which will be our first full year as a married couple—is on track to be my best reading year yet.
This is the second time that I’ve taken the title for a piece of my writing from the song “Shake the Frost” by Tyler Childers. Listen to the song if you haven’t already (or if you have and already love it), and you can read my other piece, whose title is the very next line of the song, here: “Back Home in Old Kentucky.”