The Monday Night Edit
I almost stayed home. I’m beginning to realize how often the life we’re waiting for is happening while we’re busy making other plans.
I almost said no because it was Monday.
A close friend I went to high school with texted me late in the afternoon and asked if my husband and I wanted to meet her, her guy and their new puppy, Pele, for dinner.
It had already been a long workday. My husband had had a busy day too and still had work he needed to catch up on. It was windy outside, the temperature was dropping, and staying home sounded pretty good.
This is the part of adulthood I don't think we talk about enough. It becomes very easy to default to no.
Not because we don't want to see people. Not because we don't want to do things. We're just tired. There's work. There's dinner. There's always something that needs to be finished before tomorrow.
And it was Monday.
But for some reason, this time I said yes.
The Pilot House Restaurant & Lounge
A Cold Night on the Canal
We met at a local restaurant on the marina, where the outdoor bar overlooks the Cape Cod Canal.
It was one of those fall evenings on the Cape when the weather makes it very clear that summer is over. The wind had picked up, and the temperature seemed to be dropping by the minute.
Our bartender and server was wonderfully accommodating and pulled down the tarps around the open bar to give us some protection. We moved around trying to figure out which barstools offered the most shelter from the wind.
My friend, who is far more practical than I am, had brought a blanket.
The Outdoor bar at the Pilot House on the Canal
Of course she had.
She'd tucked it into her Sea Bags tote, and before long we were using it to keep warm while we talked.
And then there was Pele.
My friend is a veterinarian and had recently rescued him. He's a Maltese, sweet and very cuddly, and he spent much of dinner tucked away from the wind while the rest of us attempted to convince ourselves that we weren't cold.
It wasn't glamorous.
It wasn't an event we'd planned weeks in advance. Nobody had made reservations for a special occasion. I wasn't particularly dressed up. I had thrown on an old Lucky Brand hoodie and my wool Vineyard Vines baseball cap.
We ate dinner, looked out at the Canal and caught up.
And it was lovely.
The Life We Keep Planning for Later
I've been thinking a lot lately about what I want the next part of my life to look like.
More freedom. More flexibility. Meaningful work, but perhaps less of it. More travel. More time with people I care about. Eventually, some version of semi-retirement.
There is a tendency, I think, to imagine that those things begin at some future point.
After this job.
After this project.
After we've saved enough.
After retirement.
After things settle down.
I've certainly done it.
But Monday night made me wonder how much of the life I'm working toward I could be living now.
Not all of it, obviously. I still have responsibilities. I still have a demanding career. My husband still had work waiting for him. And when I got home that night, there were texts and emails I needed to answer.
They were still there.
That's the thing.
For a couple of hours, I wasn't.
The Luxury of an Ordinary Night
Pele the Maltese
Maybe this is one of the things I'm beginning to understand differently in my fifties.
I used to think about time as something stretching out endlessly ahead of me. I still hope there's a great deal of it.
But I'm less inclined to assume that everything I love about my life today will be waiting for me exactly as it is ten years from now.
Our health changes.
Careers change.
Families change.
Friends move, retire, become grandparents, take care of parents, start new chapters of their own.
The people we love won't always live five minutes away or be free for dinner on a Monday night.
None of that feels particularly morbid to me. If anything, it makes ordinary life feel more valuable.
There is a particular kind of luxury in being able to receive a text from an old friend and say, Sure. I'll meet you there.
Maybe that's what spontaneity looks like at this stage of life.
Not dropping everything and flying to Paris tomorrow.
Just occasionally refusing to let routine make every decision for us.
The Friends Who Knew Us Before
There's something else about spending an evening with someone you've known since high school.
You don't have to explain every version of yourself.
There are people we meet later in life who know us as the person we are now. And then there are the people who remember the person we were before the career, the marriage, the house, the titles and all the other layers adulthood adds.
I've written before about old friends and about how much friendship has come to mean to me at this point in my life.
Monday wasn't another revelation about friendship.
It was more of a reminder.
These relationships need time.
Not someday time.
Actual Tuesday-afternoon-phone-call, Saturday-morning-coffee, Monday-night-in-the-wind time.
Otherwise it's surprisingly easy to spend years telling people we really should get together.
Starting Before I'm Ready
I think I've been considering what a semi-retirement will look like.
Permission to slow down.
Permission to travel more.
Permission to spend a Tuesday somewhere other than my desk.
Permission to have dinner with friends without mentally calculating what I still need to accomplish when I get home.
But perhaps I don't need to wait for retirement to begin practicing some of that.
I can take the dinner.
I can close the laptop occasionally.
I can leave something until tomorrow.
I can make room for an ordinary evening that doesn't advance a goal, complete a project or accomplish anything at all.
I'm not suddenly going to become wildly spontaneous. I know myself too well for that.
There will still be plenty of Monday nights when staying home is exactly what I want.
But I hope I'm getting a little better at recognizing the nights when the better answer is yes. So, I went.
Because I don't want to work so hard creating a life I'll enjoy someday that I forget to enjoy the one I'm already in.
What We Had With Us
None of these things were chosen for an Edit. They just happened to come along Monday night, which might be why I like them here.
My baseball cap and bracelet
My wool Vineyard Vines baseball cap. Mine is an older gray wool version with the little pink whale, and it's exactly the sort of thing I've kept because it still works. The original appears to be available mostly through resale now. Vineyard Vines also has a current plaid wool baseball hat if you're looking for something similar.
My vintage Lucky Brand waist-tie hoodie. Another older piece I've held onto. It's soft, easy and just polished enough to throw over something when I'm heading out. Lucky Brand has made similar waist-tie versions over the years, and the older ones turn up on resale sites. Here’s a current waist tie hoodie from the brand.
The blanket. My friend's Lucky Brand Palmdale plaid plush blanket proved to be the smartest thing any of us brought. This is perhaps less a recommendation for one particular blanket than an endorsement of becoming the person who thinks to keep one nearby during Cape Cod shoulder season.
The Sea Bags octopus tote. Her White on Navy Octopus Tote carried the blanket and somehow looked completely at home beside the marina. Sea Bags makes its totes in Maine from recycled sailcloth, and this one feels particularly right near the water.
A Cape Cod bracelet. The simple silver screwball bracelet is one of those pieces that doesn't really need explaining here. I've seen them on women around the Cape for years. It's understated, recognizable and easy to wear—the kind of jewelry that becomes part of you rather than something you have to think about putting on.
None of it was new.
None of it was bought for Monday night.
And somehow that feels appropriate.
The best things we own tend to be the things that simply come along for our lives.
Maybe the same is true of the people.
Monday night wasn't remarkable.
Close friends had dinner. We tried to stay out of the wind. We shared a blanket. A little dog stayed curled up and warm. The Canal was there, showcasing a beautiful sunset.
Then we went home.
But I'm very glad I went.
Maybe the life we're waiting for doesn't begin when the calendar finally clears.
Maybe every once in a while, it begins with a text on a Monday afternoon and deciding to say yes.
Ashley
Founder, The Polished Reset