Date Night in The Twilight Zone

Imagine a world where you cannot eat out, cannot gather in large groups, and everything normal has been turned upside down. Thursday feels no different than Saturday. The government sent us money on April 15. Is this The Twilight Zone?

No, this is just everyday life for the last few months.

We live in Ohio, so in addition to all the COVID-19 closures, we have also battled a season of persistent snow and cold. It snowed the day before Mother’s Day, and we are still getting frost warnings on the same days we cut the grass. This season has been challenging on many levels, and I imagine it has been especially difficult for couples.

One of the things I emphasize to couples all the time is the importance of date night. Well, date night has been canceled. At least the ability to go out has been canceled. As the weeks progress in 2020, restaurants are slowly opening, and normal life is emerging like a spring flower.

Even with all the challenges, I hope this season has brought some unexpected moments of joy, resilience, and connection for you as a couple. I also hope we learn something from it before life starts moving too quickly again.

I loved The Twilight Zone. Even though I was born years after the series first aired, I watched it almost daily in reruns as a kid. The episode with the bookworm in the bank vault after a nuclear disaster, the slot machine that drives a gambler over the edge, and the man who cuts his vocal cords to win a bet that he can stay silent for an entire year are absolute classics.

But my favorite was called "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street.” TIME magazine named it one of the ten best Twilight Zone episodes, and for good reason.

The episode begins on a normal street in a normal American neighborhood. There are front porches, children playing, neighbors talking, and the ordinary calm of a summer evening. Then something strange happens. There is a flash of light, a roar overhead, and suddenly the power goes out.

A boy named Tommy becomes the spark for the neighborhood’s fear. He suggests that aliens may have landed and that the power outage may be part of a larger invasion. At first, the adults try to stay reasonable. They dismiss his story and look for normal explanations. But slowly, fear takes root. Neighbors begin watching each other. Suspicion grows. Every strange detail becomes evidence. Every person becomes a possible threat. Before long, the neighborhood turns on itself.

The final scene reveals that an alien ship has been watching from a nearby hill. The aliens have not conquered the neighborhood with bombs or weapons. They have simply disrupted the pattern of daily life and watched the people descend into fear, suspicion, and panic.

That is the part that stuck with me. Fiddling with consistency can lead people into paranoia and panic.

The closing message of the episode warns that the tools of destruction do not always come through bombs and explosions. Sometimes they come through thoughts, attitudes, fear, prejudice, suspicion, and a frightened search for someone to blame.

Rod Serling’s final line was amazing: “And the pity of it is that these things cannot be confined to the Twilight Zone.”

The blessing and curse of this COVID season is that we will never see anything like this again. That makes it worth asking what we are learning while we are still in it.

1. Guard Your Mind

The first lesson is to guard your mind when routines change. One of the blessings couples may have received over the last several weeks is more time together. One of the challenges is also more time together. That is your Twilight Zone. Maybe you have learned something about your partner. Maybe you have learned something about yourself. Maybe you have noticed areas that need attention. The important thing is to focus on the blessing part where you can. Hopefully, this season will not be repeated, but that also means this particular opportunity will not be repeated. Use it well.

2. Get Some Rest

The second lesson is to receive rest when it is given, even when it comes in a strange form. For some people, the past few weeks have felt like an extended vacation. For others, it has felt like the end of the world. Most of us are probably somewhere in between, depending on the day. But maybe our heads, hearts, schedules, and lives needed a forced pause.

The 23rd Psalm begins, “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures.” It is the word “makes” that always catches me. The shepherd does not merely suggest, remind, or politely encourage. He makes me lie down in green pastures, often because I need it more than I realize. Maybe this break from the world will change the world a little. Maybe it will change us.

3. Invest in Your Relationship

The third lesson is that any time away from your normal routine can be an opportunity to invest in your relationship or family. If you have not used this season to work on your relationship, there is still time. May may be better, but it will not be completely normal. Restaurants may open slowly. Schedules may return unevenly. Life may start moving again in stages. Before it does, ask what you want to carry forward.

Date night may look different right now, but the point of date night was never only the restaurant. The point was attention. The point was choosing each other. The point was creating space to remember that you are more than coworkers, roommates, co-parents, planners, problem-solvers, and survivors of whatever strange chapter history has handed us.

So have dinner on the porch. Take a walk. Watch an old episode of The Twilight Zone. Make popcorn. Talk about what you miss, what you have learned, and what you hope does not return when life gets busy again. If nothing else, now you have something to search for on Amazon Prime or YouTube.