This isn’t my bed.

This isn’t his bed.

This is a bed inside a hotel only a few miles from our loved and lived-in-well family home.

Seems silly, right?

To have “a night away” that isn’t really away at all?

To “take a vacation” that only takes 5 minutes to get to.

To pay to stay at place that has not all, but most of the same amenities as your house.

But it’s not.

I told myself that.

And I let him know that, too, when I eventually divulged to him the surprise…

my plan to whisk him away with me,

drag him to a hotel,

feed him drinks,

force him to relax

and make him gorge on bad food and movies with curse words.

And, okay, do some kissing too.

Because I was tired of the “what should we do with our free time? I don’t know. I don’t know either” date night convo.

Because it’s fun to secretly plan things you think they your loved one might enjoy.

Because my husband works from home and every moment inside of ours is likely a reminder of his job and his numerous, outside-of-family responsibilities.

Because my home is my work — my home and the pint-sized beating hearts that occupy it, and it’s a fact that sometimes the fingerprint-stained walls that make it up can feel claustrophobic at times.

Listen, we didn’t stay somewhere fancy, as you can see.

But what I plainly see,

and see very clearly,

is that

the man I met when I was 15,

the man I moved in with at 20,

the man I married at 22,

the man I birthed a baby with in 2011,

2013,

and then again in 2016,

is the man of my dreams,

my forever,

my one and only,

and my other half,

and being with him,

alone,

a few miles away from the house we’ve made a home,

it makes me feel whole.

And so,

every now and again,

we get away for a little bit

— a little bit that means a lotta bit.