Table for Two

“Do you want to go to breakfast?”

I looked up from my journal, pen pausing on the page. My first thought was that I didn’t have time. I hesitated long enough for him to offer to cook instead.

“Yes,” I said. “Let’s go to breakfast.”

We changed out of our home clothes (sweatshirts and flannel robes) into lazy, rainy-day jeans and a baseball cap and headed out the door. I love it when we act on impulse—jumping into the world together without taking the time to change into our “real selves.” Sometimes, it seems the time between the idea and the execution makes all the difference.

We’re in our winter place, renting an apartment overlooking the Atlantic, on a beautiful island in Florida. It’s quiet. It’s close to our oldest son and his wife. It’s the perfect place for writing, resting, and learning to play pickleball, but the restaurants are few and far between. If the crow flies five miles, it takes thirty minutes to reach by car.

We talk… because it’s too early for anyone to call, interrupting the fresh news going through his mind and the new words forming in mine.

We talk all the way to the restaurant, just talk. Somehow, we avoid conversations about schedules or release dates. We talk with no agenda.

It almost felt like an interruption as the hostess asked, “Just two?”

“Yes. A table for two.”

She leads us to a table in the corner. It seems awkward at first. We always sit at the bar top. After thirty years of marriage, I know my very social husband likes to sit where there is a game on TV or a friend across the way. I always thought it was because he liked other people more than me.

It dawned on me recently that maybe he was just afraid of silence. There has always been plenty to talk about… work, the boys, our parents, or money. But what was there to discuss after that?

We’ve grown old together, but now that the boys have moved away and our careers are over, it becomes increasingly evident that we have grown in different directions—not apart, but certainly towards different end goals.

He wants comfortable things… to build a bigger house so the family can all be together. To buy a car. To work on our investments.

I want to explore. To write. To simplify.

He’s feeling lonely. A social man, newly retired, isn’t always as freeing as it seems.

I’m feeling closed in. I’ve been working from home for years and crave quiet time.

We talked for hours. Stopping long enough to order pancakes and accept refills on our coffee.

Drawing on napkins, scribbling, and fixing.

Forgetting that his plans for the day involved watching a game, and mine included launching a book.

I’ve been praying for this day. As I walk through the sand each morning, I ask God to help us create a marriage that will outlast everything. To rekindle the dreams that turned into duties and the spontaneity that was lost in a sea of responsibilities. I ask Him to help me be the wife Jeff dreamed of while teaching him to gracefully enter the space that has been “just mine” for so long.

There may have been two cups of coffee, two placemats, and one pancake to share, but He was there. Bringing us together as we learn to create a space for all the things together…connecting at a table for two.

Kim Mosiman is a wife and mother to two grown sons and a new grandma! She’s been blessed to live a life full of love and experiences, which has allowed her to escape retirement and embark on a new adventure as an author.

Her first book, Reflections of Joy: Learning to Love the Woman You See While Becoming the One You’re Meant to Be, will be released in May.

She believes the dear Lord put her on this earth to bring people together, often at the dinner table, and she hopes to help more women find a place of self-acceptance, belonging, and love. You can read more at Kim Mosiman Wellness or find her on Instagram or Facebook.

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