Tell it as it is

Last night we were out for dinner to celebrate a small business victory of my husband. We ended up at a really nice restaurant called Restaurant Fris. Reinout who had already been out for an early celebration came home in a funny mood, going on about suspect pictures and associations I was publishing. I guess it was all down to his voluminous alcohol intake, which may have started a tad to early for a Friday afternoon. Nevertheless he assured me all was well and he still loved me (a girl’s got to hear these things once in a while).

So we ended up at the restaurant, ordered about 5 starters – all at once – and started to devour our food. Somewhere halfway during dinner I managed to choke on my soup, which started off a hysteric cough attack. Great, just my luck! People were looking at me as I was the plague personified and apologetically I ran into the bathroom to spare them of the worst sight. 5 minutes later I came out and dinner was gone.

We ordered our desserts. As we were waiting, doing some small talk, Reinout saw the opportune moment to lay into me. I can’t disclose the topic – yet – but it’s sufficient to say he made me look like a dimwit prick with no sense of urgency, work moral, or brains for business. Perhaps he had a point. My pregnancy hormones rapidly started to rise, and tears were welling up in my eyes. I won’t cry, I won’t cry I kept repeating like a mantra, which also managed to serve as an involuntary block for the worst insults that were being launched at me. I managed to unblock myself, as the new me should be more susceptible to criticism. It worked, and I could see were he was getting at. In fact I was happy he was telling me “as it is”. It hit home. And as I was laying awake in my bed in the wee hours of the morning, I was racking my brains, going through every single detail of his monologue.

It felt good though, and waking up this morning, to a nice cup of coffee and good morning kiss, I felt strangely alleviated. “After all tomorrow is another day”...