What a lot of people don’t know is that a big part of how my husband and I moved past just being friends to “something more” was thanks to hours on end talking on the phone as he drove a tour bus from one venue to another.

He was, at that time, the only bus driver for the artist he was also playing keys for… which made for long days! So as he drove through the night, to help the time pass and to help him stay awake, he’d put on a headset and call friends from the road. Being the fellow night owl, I was the last person on that list and we’d end up talking for hours through the night. It wasn’t unusual for us to talk three to four hours, only hanging up because he had pulled up to his destination.

The thing that blew us both away was how in those hours, we never got tired of talking to each other. Some nights it wasn’t much more than what he was seeing from his driver seat, but we had no interest in hanging up  the phone. Some nights, we’d share stories about our pasts, and others we’d have a lively debate about a topic. It didn’t matter what we talked about, and we never sweated what we’d say. We just fell in line with each other every time, night after night.

Married now, we thankfully still never tire of talking to each other. However, over the last several years, the opportunity to talk all night like we did back then hasn’t presented itself as much. (Oh don’t get me wrong, we could talk all night in person, but the old way of “on the phone while he drives” is the way I mean.)

Lately, though, my husband has been doing more driving than playing, which has provided us that old way of visiting again. Take the other night, for example. We talked for about four hours on the phone. At times, we sat in silence — him watching the road come at him, me playing solitaire on my laptop — but it never took long for something to hit one of us that we just had to share.

I loved it.

I couldn’t hold my eyes open any more when we called it a night. He was stopping to fuel the bus, and it was time for me to fuel my body with sleep. We said good night, his with a “rest well,” mine with a “be safe.” I fell asleep with a smile on my face… knowing we’d do it all over again the next night.

Just like old times