I stared across the barren diner table. My husband and I had just arrived, it was our first date in decades ever since the kids came into the picture. My husband was only in his late thirties but he looked twice that. We aren’t super wealthy, heck we came barely make the rent payments on time. We both came from bad neighborhoods when were young. Everyone around us was either poor or homeless or just void of spirit and happiness. The problems of life and money sucked all the joy out of life. It’s hard to enjoy yourself when the threat of an eviction note is constantly looming over your head.
And yet still the people kept perceiving through the hardships. And even though I didn’t understand it when I was young and naive, still a sponge absorbing the world around me, it all clicked when I meet Jonathan. Love. The best weapon against sadness and despair. The only thing that can fuel your journey in life after being drained from your daily nine to five and sucker punched by your boss and constrained with bills.
Never has Elton’s song meant so much, I used to hear it on the radio as a child. It always just sounded catchy, I never understood the meaning of hope it was trying to convey. I looked at my husband's beautiful dirty brown eyes. Dirty like the back-killing labor he does at his construction job, but that's the dirtiness I love. He looks at my messy brown hair, plagued with frizzes and split ends. He didn’t even care I was looking like a slob, he always overlooked my imperfections. We smiled at each other for what felt like an eternity. The waitress came up to our table and brought us back to reality.
“Lovely evening am I right,” she said as she smiled at us, “May I take Y'all order.”
My husband replied, “Yes, my wife and I would like…”
I don’t even remember what we ate, I just know I loved it, Haha.