Distorted Memories

As we grow older, we have to remember things in their proper context.  Otherwise we can be overly hard on ourselves, or on the selves we used to be.

This weekend I was making excuses for why Jim and I never used to go on dates when the kids were little.  Then I thought about it some more, and the reasons were very valid at the time (more on those later).  The only trouble was that we never got in a habit of going out without kids even once they got older and we actually could.  Thankfully we are remedying this in our later years now that we have absolutely no excuse not to go out by ourselves.

Our kind of a date 1987 (Xela zoo during the day with babies front and back)

Think about it, though.  Twenty-five years ago we had no cell phones.  How many modern couples would blissfully leave their babies in the care of a willing baby sitter in a foreign country if she had no way of calling the parents or dialing 9-1-1 in case of emergency?  Not many, I think.  Add to that the reality that a baby sitter in Latin America would not likely have any training or any concept of first aid, nutrition, or conflict resolution.  Ladies in Guatemala would give fussy children a piece of candy to make them happy.

It would be easy to revise history and say how we blew it by not making our date nights a priority, but the simple truth is that we had no one to watch the kids (back in Guatemala living outside the city), had nowhere to go (back then Xela had fewer restaurants and no movie theaters like today), and most importantly we had no telephone at the house or in our pocket.  Add to that something we tried to hide from our parents - that Guatemala was technically still involved in a civil war, and we felt much safer to be at home rather than out on the roads after dark.

Another major factor was how sick Timmy was as a baby.  Until his surgery at seven months, he was nursing around the clock, almost every hour - throwing up entire feedings which left him hungry again.  No way would I leave him in the care of someone else.  Below is a photo of one local gal, Dora, who used to come in to help me with laundry (multiple outfit changes on my part as well as the baby's every day plus cloth diapers times two) and mopping milk off the tile floors.  No way would I have left her in charge while I went on a date with Jim.

What we did do to preserve our marriage was to dutifully put the children to bed rather early each evening, to assure that we had grown-up time alone together every single night.  With no internet, no TV, no VCRs, and no telephone - we had plenty of time for communicating on a daily basis.  Often we were each other's only friend.

There.  We are vindicated.  With that said, I am happy with the current season of life, when we just announce to our teens we are leaving, and we just walk out the door (with cell phones in our pockets). 

Nowadays we can drive less than an hour and choose from more than one theater playing movies in English with Spanish subtitles.  The cost for a current movie is not much more than the $3 movies in the states.  We have plenty of options for restaurants in the city, too.  Even here in our little town, we can walk to a coffee shop that serves sandwiches, burgers, and Mexican food.  No complaints!