The Flannel on the Couch
Last week, we hosted one of our usual dinners, only this time it was out at the farm. Our friend Matt was in town visiting for a few nights and we made a point to see him before he headed out again (side note: we miss him so much!).
At some point after the plates were cleared, a few people had left, and the conversation got more casual, PJ ended up on the couch beside me. He was wearing my favorite flannel shirt that I picked up at Goodwill last year. He isn’t big on flannels or long sleeves in general because he gets hot easily, so it was new for me to see him in my shirt. Even though we’re the same size and used to wear each other’s clothes all the time, in the last couple of years our individual styles have changed, so we don’t borrow pieces from each other as much as we used to.
PJ was leaning back, one arm draped over the cushion, laughing at something someone said, and it’s a specific kind of laugh that maybe only I recognize where his eyes crinkle and his nose does, too, and he’s just unaware of himself and loose and very present in the moment.
And I caught my breath.
We’ve been together for sixteen years. Sixteen years of shared bathrooms, shared calendars, shared grief, shared joy. We’ve moved houses, started businesses, started a family and a farm, paid bills, fought (and made up), stayed up too late and woken up too early.
In short, we’ve done the big things. But in this moment, with PJ sitting right beside me on the couch wearing my shirt, it wasn’t a big thing. It was a small, ordinary, blink-and-you-miss-it moment, and I couldn’t help but feel, in that very moment, more in love with him than when I was 19.
I think when you’ve been with someone long enough, love stops looking like nonstop acts of affection and admiration because it doesn’t need to look like that all the time for each of you to know it’s there. It lives in other places: sharing coffee in the morning before the kids wake up or in borrowed flannel shirts or in the way he laughs without even trying to be charming but ends up charming the hell out of me anyway. I’ve studied his face and I know it well, and nothing brings me more joy than to see him experience joy.
There’s something deeply attractive about that kind of love to me. Growing up and being obsessed with movies and TV shows, I used to think passion was loud. You know, grand gestures and big trips and milestone anniversaries. And those things matter, they do, but what I felt that night was, in a way, just as romantic and comforting as any big show of love. It was the realization that after sixteen years, I still look at him and think, you’re mine. And I still get to be yours.
By noticing the small things in life, and in your relationship, and by allowing yourself to still be moved by the person sitting across the room from you even after you’ve seen them in every possible light, you can keep that magic from 16 years ago alive. It just may look different than it did back then, and that’s okay.
It’s easy to assume we already know our partner completely, especially after being with them for so long, but if we stop looking, we stop seeing. And if we stop seeing, we miss the magic that is still there.
If you’re lucky enough to be years into something steady, here’s the invitation: Look again. Notice the way they reach for a glass. Pay attention to how they move through a room that you built together. Keep an eye out for how they look in your passenger seat when you’re heading to the store.
And most importantly: Watch the way they laugh on the couch after dinner while wearing your shirt.