Whatever happened to romance?

That's perhaps one of the foremost questions on our minds once we get married, I suppose. We hear it from friends who have been married a while, relatives who frown at the idea of wasting time on romance after marriage and generally, the world and its mother!! Soon, you begin to hear it from your mouth... Is that really you yelling at your husband about promises not kept, candlelit dinners expected and not delivered and horror of horrors, are you really using your old love letters as evidence of once-passionate love?
If you are, I'd advice you (in the lyrics of a highly popular Bollywood disco number) to 'just chill'. The love, the passion, the romance, it's all there, perhaps simmering under the surface, perhaps hidden deeper but the love you shared endures. Love doesn't just disappear; marriage therapists say you gotta work at it. But who's got the time? Ah, there's the catch... that elusive quantity.
But sometimes, life gives you breaks and you have to hold on tight and make the best of it. My parents have taken my daughter home with them for a week (she'll be back on Wednesday), to help me out with a particularly deadline-filled period. And I did a lot of catching up with work and a little bit with hubby, doing some things out of the ordinary that we wouldn't have done with a sleeping two-year-old at home: like taking a late-night drive just to check out a new railway line that cuts across a bridge and then stopping at my favourite cafe for some absolutely sinful dessert! But it was on Sunday that spontaneity really kicked in (something I always accuse Abhi of not doing: spur-of-the-moment things). We borrowed a friend's motorbike and took off to a beach some kilometres away. Now, I am the beach person (as in wallow-in-the-water type) and Abhi's more of the sit-by-the-shore-far-away-from-the-spray kind. But we had fun. On our way back, it began to rain. Abhi asked me whether I wanted him to stop, I said 'no' and boy, did we have a lovely, drenchy ride in the rain. It was beautiful and soooooo romance-inducing. Or was that romance? I don't know; suffice it to say that we felt a tenderness for each other that we didn't have time for in the busyness of everyday life. The rest of the evening was, to say the least, great...
So people, take a break. You are doing enough for others; make a little time for yourself. Even the simplest of things is enough to rekindle love.
Have fun.