While some fun costs money: an amusement park, a fine meal out, a trip to Vegas, or that hilarious new movie, many fun activities don’t cost a dime. Give your partner the gift of being a slave for a week, including the requisite master or mistress verbiage, pulling your forelock, bowing or curtseying, and backing out of the room. The results can be funny, especially if carried into public or in front of the kids.
Both of you call in sick to work and play hooky – hang out at the mall like truant high school sophomores. Spend some time coming up with totally outrageous excuses that you know you will never be able to deliver with a straight face. If it’s summer, wash the car, and each other, in the driveway. If it’s winter, have a snowball fight or walk in the rain. Walk along the beach or in the hills or stroll through town window shopping.
Watch television together: not the dreary news but old Seinfeld or Lucy reruns which are just as funny as when they were made. Search out joke sites on the Internet or spend some time at the drugstore just looking at funny greeting cards. Tell stories about things that happened to you before you met and reminisce about the fun times you’ve had since you first became an item.
Take a foreign language class at a local adult school and decide that you will only communicate in that language over dinner. If anything else, it will polish your charades ability. Take an art class and laugh at your ineptness with color and perspective. Take a bus or train ride and makeup stories about the other passengers, Sing Karaoke and mutually laugh at the probable response your efforts would elicit if you auditioned for “American Idol.” Pretend you’ve just met and try out some old pick-up lines to see each other’s reaction.
Life is so short. There are so many problems that arise and challenges that you must face. At times, we become overwhelmed by our responsibilities, and the energy required to keep our lives on an even keel.
Deliberately establishing “recess” periods gives us a break from the daily grind. Just as children don’t learn well if they don’t have a chance to go out and play, adults need a recess too. It allows us to return to work re-energized and renewed. The more we practice it, the more frequent it will become. Most importantly, the playtime with our partner intensifies our relationship and can keep our affection green and growing through the years ahead.
