When you’re married and in your late 20s or early 30s your life can become routinized. You’ve got responsibilities, kids, bills, work, volunteer opportunities, housework, yard work, etc. In order to get it all done, you fall into a routine. Routines are useful and helpful, but rarely fun. I would describe marriage with kids as a different kind of fun—your kids make you laugh and life is certainly more rewarding. But it can wear you down as well.
Sometimes you yearn for that energy of youth. The days where you hung out at Taco Bell on the last day of school, ordered a water and filled the cup with Mountain Dew instead. The days when you built a fire in your backyard and talked the issues of the day into the dirt with whoever showed up, solving nothing but your thirst for intellectual exploration. Days where you thought you were sneaky, cool, and funny. How does one recapture the feeling of those days without shirking responsibilities and making decisions that are harmful to your children’s futures?
Spontaneity. Doing whatever you feel like doing in the moment is a habit tossed aside after the honeymoon stage, and buried deep after kids arrive. But carving out a time and a place for spontaneity can deliver this feeling of youthful adventure.
A little over a month ago, a situation of this sort came together for Meg and me. One of my good friends from high school and his wife were moving about an hour away. Not too far, but far enough that we weren’t going to see each other as often. A few couples decided to go out to Korean barbecue together to see them off. The right amount of people mixed and mingled and out of nowhere Spontaneous Dinner Club was born. We had the second monthly installment last weekend, and I don’t see it slowing down anytime soon.
Here are a couple of elements that made this happen.
1. Time to Kill
The restaurant was a little over an hour away, so we had a certain amount of time to kill. As Laura Dannon says in Brick, “I know everyone and have all the time in the world.” To which Brendon responds, “Ah, the folly of youth.”
But, really, is there a situation that is more synonymous with youth than wasting time? I don’t think there is.
2. Close Quarters
We all drove up in the same car. There were four couples on the original trip and we had to borrow a Tahoe to fit everyone. I think it started out as a “Let’s save on gas” idea, but it wound up an essential element to the flow. You squish eight adults into a Tahoe, two of them pregnant women, and drive an hour each way, you can’t help but have unexpected conversation. It was like carpooling to the winter formal dance, but without the fancy clothes or the anxiety.
There were a couple of personalities that came out of the woodwork in this situation that pushed the experience to another level. One guy turned out to have a previously undiscovered delightful sense of comedic timing and delivery. Another one is a serial exaggerator, leading to the two of them entertaining with a discussion on the worthlessness of adhering to the truth in storytelling. Their wives looked on knowingly.
3. Up For Trying New Things
Testing the unknown always brings an element excitement. Some people liked kimchi, some didn’t. Part of the beauty of the whole thing was watching people who weren’t exactly the same types of people realize, “Hey, I can enjoy this person’s perspective and have fun with them even if we’re not exactly alike.” I know that’s a theme I’ve written about a lot lately, but I feel like it’s an important one.
On our way back home from the restaurant we decided to stop at Burgerville for shakes. The idea had been tossed around at dinner. Some were incredulous at first, but once we stopped it went over well, and is now one of the few hard and fast rules about Spontaneous Dinner Club. Which so far look like this:
1. Everyone has to ride in the same car
2. You have to go to Burgerville for shakes afterward
That’s it. Keep it fresh and you won’t go wrong.
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