My wife and I are sitting poolside at our Puerto Rican resort, and everything is allegedly perfect. The water’s warm, the sun is bright, and the ocean’s just a short walk away. It’s 9:07am, and already we’ve loitered at the gym, made a good faith effort at a beach run, and just wrapped up a leisurely breakfast for two. To our astonishment, nobody is crying and nobody has pooped anyone’s pants.  

“So what do we do now?” my wife asks from her deck chair.

“I don’t know,” I shrug, peering out at the pool. “What do humans do?”

In our nearly five years of parenthood, this is the first time my wife and I are away together without our children. Eighteen hundred and eleven miles away, to be exact. Not that anyone’s counting.

“For the moment, we are nobody’s lifeguard, nobody’s Sherpa, nobody’s personal valet. There are no flotation devices to haul, no beach bags to lug, and all the sand toys belong solely to me.”

Our responsibilities have now shrunken by two people and a dog, which means time is now infinite. For the moment, we are nobody’s lifeguard, nobody’s Sherpa, nobody’s personal valet. There are no flotation devices to haul, no beach bags to lug, and all the sand toys belong solely to me.  

Back at the airport, we’d watched, a bit bemused, as the other parents tried feverishly (and failed wondrously) to corral their small children to their gates. First, they’d tried reasoning (“We’re gonna miss the plane!”), then threatening (“Do you wanna go to Disney World or not?”). Finally, when all else failed, they resorted to the double-arm scoop, tucking their toddlers tight to their hips to try to make up for lost time. Thumbing through my newspaper, I peeked up to notice a father wearing a car seat like a hat, while just behind him, his wife herded their children with the expertise of a well-trained border collie (though mostly to no avail).

“Wow,” I chuckled, reaching for my coffee, “I don’t envy them.”

But the sad truth is I sort of did.

Yesterday, while touring Old San Juan by night, my wife spotted a pair of children and whispered, “Those kids look like ours.” A few hours prior, while eyeing a splash pad near our hotel, she’d remarked, “They would have loved this.” She was right.

Thankfully, when we weren’t busy thinking we were missed, we managed to carve out a bit of time for ourselves. We rented a car and drove west to a rain forest, then proceeded to hike half an hour en route to a waterfall. As we neared the falls, what was once a whisper soon became a roar. We were all but running as we rounded that final curve, pushing our way through the leaves and over rocks before flinging our shoes and shirts and joining the other hikers beneath those roaring falls.

Would it be overdramatic to call it a baptism? Or to refer to it as some long overdue Fountain of Youth?

Whatever it was, it was mostly just a place lovely enough to help us forget the loved ones we’d left behind. As my wife and I swam breathlessly toward the midst of that maelstrom, felt the hurtling water pound our backs, we laughed and screamed and got goofy. We stuck out our tongues, cocked our heads to the sky, and posed for silly photos. For the first time in a long time, neither of us had to remind the other to smile. At last, muscle memory kicked in.

We did it, I thought during our hike back to the car.We ditched our kids and became the kids ourselves. And though I didn’t want to return to being those people forever, it felt pretty good to see them again. To reintroduce myself to myself, myself to my wife, ourselves to each other.

Back at the pool, my wife taps me mid-sentence.

“Hmm?” I ask, peering up from my laptop.

She tilts her phone my way, sharing a photo her sister just sent showing the kids waking up in their beds. They’re grinning, having a grand old time, and by the looks of things, appear to miss us far less than we’ve missed them.

“Those jerks,” I groan, returning my attention to my screen. “What ever happened to absence makes the heart grow fonder?”

We have no answer. What we have, instead, is the warm water, the bright sun, each other.

We sigh, smile, take a dip in the pool. Just like humans do.