Gindi Vincent

The Dish on Career, Fashion, Faith, and Family

Gindi

The Thirteenth Year Love Letter

by Leave a Comment

YOU ARE THIRTEEN!!! So here comes a belated thirteenth letter. I started writing you a birthday letter when you were two, so I went back and read that love letter.

I loved picking out the characteristics that still so define each of you. For S, I wrote, “You are persistent and stick with things until you understand them.” If I could select any trait for you, persistence is it. Others remark on your ability to work through the hardest challenges and not give up. This will serve you well your whole life.

For L, in addition to your zest of life, I wrote, “You are also very independent.” Ha! It’s still utterly true and will carry you to great success because of your focus and ability to strike out on your own away from the crowd. No matter the pressures you face, please hold on to your ability to find and know your own way.

And W, I wrote about your sensitive soul, but also remarked, “We will always be seekers in our home, on a journey to learn and understand more, because of you.” You are curious. It’s a trait that can’t be taught and one that will take you to new adventure because of your love of learning. Please don’t lose this when you have a tough school year.

I’ll warn you, I’ve back dated this letter. I’m writing it in December instead of on October 2nd like usual. Turns out, it’s much harder to write with wisdom and advice for 13 year olds than it was for toddlers.

This led me to look back on the more recent letters. For your tenth it was more a recap of all we’ve been through for 10 years and less insightful advice. Your 11th year love letter is my favorite because it recaps all of the highlights of the prior years. I wrote:

For S: I’ll close with my five year old love letter words, “I love how you march to the beat of your own drummer.”  May it always be so. But know that wherever you march, daddy and I will always be there to cheer you on. 

For L: I’ll close with a note from your three year old letter: You are fierce.  So independent.  Strong willed.  So focused…You will face battles and challenges in your life my beloved, but you will stare them down and they will shake as you approach.  You are so brave and fearless.  I love that.  The most remarkable thing about your strength is that it carries as its companion empathy and nurturing. 

For W: I penned this at three years old, and I close with it now, “Your absolute delight in living fills up any space you invade.  And there’s never any doubt about your love for everything you encounter because you tell us in no uncertain terms what you …  It is a revelation to watch the world through your eyes.  You are already becoming a man of honor…” 

Why am I relying on words from years past?

Because the older you get, the more I realize I don’t know. And the more I realize the window is closing with time I have you here. There’s so much I want to tell you. So much I want you to know when you leave our home.

I know you’ll have to learn it for yourself. But the mom in me, well I can’t help but want to help. I’m also learning that I’ll be able to do less and less of that. Don’t get me wrong – dad and I are ALWAYS here and ready to support and encourage and pick you up. But we actually help you through the things you face less now than when you were younger.

You’re a teenager! I can’t even believe it. Don’t believe all that buzz about how teenagers are hard and have to fight with their parents and rebel. You are awesome! Yes, we have our conflicts, and we have and will continue to have them. We also have a fantastic relationship. Your dad and I love hanging out with you guys. Traveling with you and experiencing new foods and cultures and sights. I hope we will be able to experience new things together our whole lives.

I also know that these teen years are ones where you’ll need to pull away and set boundaries that make you your own person with your own beliefs and plans.

During these times, when you’re deciding what it means to be you, I’d ask you to think about these three things:

1. Treasure your faith. When you were young, you made a personal decision to follow Jesus. This was a precious step of faith. Increasingly, being a person of the Christian faith isn’t a popular decision. And you’ve been in a bubble of a school where your faith is not questioned. As you move to high school, your faith will face storms. Heck, it already has. Your relationship with Jesus is between you and him. Don’t let it be governed by politics or media or tv preachers. Grow it personally. Question it, struggle with it, push and pull through the issues you face (the Bible tells us to work out our faith with fear and trembling – God gets that faith is hard and it’s a journey). But don’t lose it. After all I’ve been through now for nearly 5 decades, I can tell you I wouldn’t have made it without the centering love, power, and grace of God. Hold on to this.
2. Choose your friends wisely. We have been gifted with an incredible community. You have adults and peers who you’ve grown up with, who you deeply know and who deeply know you. It is a rare gift. Friendships in your teen years change. That’s okay. As they change, be discerning. Choose people who are kind and honest and make, more often than not, good decisions. These next five years, friendships will be absolutely critical in the places you go and decisions you make.
3. Make your own decisions. This is a natural counterpart to #2. Each of you often are your own person, marching to the beat of your own drummer, and setting out on your own path. However, that gets harder. Over the years to come, people will make decisions that look fun but are wrong, or are wrong for you. People will pressure you to make choices to be part of the crowd. I know this advice sounds like an old person who doesn’t “get it,” but I do. These pressures still occur as an adult. I believe the most intense of this pressure occurs over the coming years for you though. Remember who you are. What you believe in. What your priorities are. Make decisions that are best for you not the ones to be a part of the crowd. You’ll always have support from your faith and your family.

I closed out your 12th birthday letter with a thanks. A thanks for being you. That still holds true today. But I guess I’d also close out with this: forge your own path. Be brave. Hold onto your faith. Love boldly. Speak truth. Show respect. Add to the good in the world. You already have.

All my love (and sorry this year’s letter was SO long), always, Mom.

Happy 16th Anniversary

by 1 Comment

Y’all know I’ve been radically absent.

Not a peep in 2022 besides the one cancer anniversary post.

I have a New Year post in my head which maybe will get posted when half the year is over.

But there are a few days I write. Always write.

Today is one of those.

My marriage turns 16 years old today. Happy sweet 16, Vincent Marriage.

Over the years, I’ve written different messages. Here on the blog and in a little book I keep just for Bray and in cards and on social media.

We’ve had crazy hard years and sublime years. Good marriage years that were bad everything else years and vice versa.

We were all joking around after dinner a couple of evenings ago, because there’s another school dance coming up tonight, and little bit was listing what she wants in a husband. Thankfully, she started with the fact that she wanted him to be a Christian but it was quickly followed by being a cowboy, funny and hot!

Ha! Well, I quickly retorted, I got lucky because your dad is HOT! I still think he’s hot over 18 years after I met him.

They of course went on about how gross we are.

This makes me enormously happy.

I still love to kiss him every single day. He makes me laugh. He deals with my utter and complete insanity – seriously I’m a very structured control freak that he manages to live with every single day. And still be relatively sane.

We’ve survived triplets and cancer and hurricanes and job losses and transitions and aging us and everyone around us and now three middle schoolers in the throws of all that is middle school.

But this year comes with some trepidation for me too. It was in my parents 16th year of marriage that it exploded. Big exploded. With all the collateral damage that comes with a big marriage breaking apart in a small town with the charismatic preacher. Financial ruin. Extended separation between kids and parent. Moving across states.

I was 12.

So it would be a total failure on my part if I wasn’t evaluating what all that means for me emotionally in this 16th year of my marriage when my kids also happen to be 12.

One of the things I did was I talked to Bray about it. And I’ll keep talking about it. Because we’re actually better communicators now than we were even five years ago. Saying something out loud helps me to keep from worrying or obsessing about it.

We’ll keep doing the things that are good about our marriage. We still go on dates. We still kiss and say I love every single day. We’re more honest about what’s happening in the kids lives and in their circles than we ever were because the implications are greater now.

We mess up all the time too. I’m pretty spendy and he’s a saver so you can imagine those discussion. While we have navigated those differences (and some other really big political differences) over the years, we have to keep talking about it before it turns into a painful fight.

But mainly, on this gorgeous May 6th, when I look back at the years we have fashioned a life together, I’m overwhelmingly thankful. Thankful to still be in love, to have made it to our sweet 16, and to have so many adventures to look forward to over the next 16 years.

I love you babe.

One Year After The Bell

by 2 Comments

That’s me. Today. 

My six month oncologist visit happened to fall today.

One year after my last radiation treatment. 

March 31st. 

It happened to be just before Easter weekend last year. Lots of analogies running through my head.

It’s been a bear of a week. (More on that tomorrow.)

I’ve been all upside down and inside out and it was all totally unrelated to this.

My friend asked me last month if I’d write to mark this anniversary. I wasn’t sure.

I went back and read what I wrote six months after the surgery.  On August 4th.

The side effects are largely gone. No more itching, thankfully. My range of motion on the right side is back.

But I’m having hot flashes from the Tamoxifen. And weight gain. I’m really heavy right now and uncomfortable about it most of the time.

My breasts are scarred up and I don’t like to see them. I’m super thankful I have them, mind you, but they’re a constant reminder.

I’m grateful. Regularly. 

I’m amazed that the cancer was caught early, cut out in the surgery and I didn’t need chemotherapy.

I guess I’ve wondered how to live in the in between. 

Part of what I’ve been doing is stepping back from my relationship with Christ.

It’s probably why I haven’t written. 

I don’t know how to say that. 

I’m not leaving the faith or anything, but I’ve sort of stepped into a selfish cycle.

Isn’t that terrible? 

After all of the goodness of God and others, I’ve been pretty self focused the past four or five months.

I’ve focused on my kids and on my job and on spending money and lots of things surrounding me and mine, but not so much on what God wants me to do next.

This tension has cropped up between sacrificing everything because God has been so incredibly faithful despite my faithlessness (the whole Samuel’s mother giving him back to God idea) and squeezing everything into this life possible because who knows when it will end. Whether or not it’s what God wants. 

It’s the ugliest part of how I’ve been processing. 

So I don’t have a rainbows and sunshine anniversary post. 

I’m struggling but I’m also okay. 

The doctor said everything looked good today and I was utterly thankful for that.

I can pray every day, which I do, and thank God, which I do, but still not live in a space where God wants me to be.

I tried to write a final line to this post a dozen different ways. To wrap this up neatly. I kept deleting them. Because everything sounded trite and untrue. I don’t know what’s next. But maybe I’ll come back here again.

Say Hello and Wave Goodbye

by 13 Comments

It’s inevitable.

With each new door that opens, you leave the last room behind as you walk through.

I just left a room. A chapter. An era.

For nine years, I worked at a global energy company. I joined after 14 years in private practice. I moved to the position because I had toddler triplets and didn’t feel I could juggle the demands of business development and the billable hour while being a present mom. We’d waited so long to have a family, I didn’t want to miss out on watching them grow.

I was incredibly fortunate in that I had a great nine years. I served in different roles, including this last one of over four and a half years where I got to serve as the lawyer for a massive joint venture project. Cooler than even the work, which was really cool, were the people. These clients have been the most incredible ones of my career. They became dear friends and made my day-to-day work an absolute dream.

I loved coming to work. I loved what I did and who I got to hang out with.

That all made the walking through the open door harder.

I basically want to hold on to everyone forever. Add all the new people but keep all the old ones too. That can get tricky after multiple career changes and moves.

Before COVID hit last year, I started thinking about whether it made sense to move. But COVID hit, and all that went on the back burner.

At the end of 2020, I dusted off those thoughts. But cancer hit, and all that went back on the back burner.

So when I finished radiation and celebrated Easter, I started asking God if it was time to go. There were three things I was looking for (in addition to all the basics like wonderful people, competitive comp, etc.): a leadership role, a diverse industry, and closer to home.

The only job I interviewed for had all three.

I will go from a 33 mile commute, one way, to a one and half mile commute. I know, I drove it yesterday to specifically measure my commute home.

I will be doing a lot of different things, but it will be more technology focused. And… I will have the chance to serve as the Assistant General Counsel with lots of opportunity for career growth.

This last one wasn’t about the title. As you know, I’m incredibly passionate about leadership and diversity and development and corporate culture. I wanted a seat at the table because I wanted to invest this into a corporate law department.

However, all that excitement about the opportunity didn’t make the goodbye any easier.

Last week was hard. Amazing clients threw me some farewell parties and we got to swap our funny stories from our adventure together. I received kind notes and generous words. And I hugged a bunch of people and tried not to cry.

Now that the goodbyes have concluded, I drove away from my work campus last Friday at lunch with no work computer, badge, cell phone, or email, I’m ready.

I feel really ready.

So I’m running all my last minute errands today because tomorrow I’m going to be a new hire. With a fresh backpack and water bottle, ready to tackle the world. I get to meet new people and learn new things and I LOVE learning new things. I’m sure I’ll feel inexperienced and nervous too, because a lot of this is going to be new. But I’ll grow and stretch and test out a key tenet of my faith: My grace is sufficient for you for my strength is made perfect in weakness.

I’m excited to say hello now that I’ve waved goodbye.

Christmas 2021

by 2 Comments

What. A. Year!

Seriously. I don’t even know where to start.

I started by reading last year’s letter. You know, I’ve been writing Christmas letters since my senior year of college. There are still some of you who get our Christmas cards that remember those old letters that would come on Christmas-y paper tucked into an old fashioned card (before photo cards).

That first letter went out in 1990. So here we are, a full three decades into this tradition. I’ve missed a couple because of kid chaos, but overall I’ve been pretty good.

I’m sure I have them all somewhere. I’d love to see if ever there has been a year as wild as this one.

You all know well this year started off with two big Cs. I had just received the cancer diagnosis when a week into the New Year every single member of our family was diagnosed with COVID. Except me. Which was an absolute miracle because it meant my lumpectomy did not have to be delayed! Bray got really sick, and still doesn’t have his sense of smell back. The kids were fine but it meant homeschooling for several weeks right before surgery.

The surgery and month’s long radiation were successful and I rang the bell right before Easter weekend! Thank you all for your prayers and support during this time.

All the while the kids played spring sports (the boys playing on a wonderfully fun team, the Astros, for spring baseball and little bit playing Grace softball) and Bray and I juggled really busy jobs.

No sooner did sports end than we had a fifth grade GRADUATION on our hands and I could hardly believe we were going to have middle schoolers this year! I basically stopped writing for months after cancer so I don’t really have a record of all these precious moments at the end of elementary school. I think I’d burned up all my words.

A gorgeous family vacation to Bar Harbor, and a little reminiscing of where we spent our honeymoon, brought me back to life and gave me words again. We had an amazing trip, full of lobster, boating, Acadia National Park, and downtime together.

Beyond that, I don’t remember much over the summer. We did get to celebrate Bray turning the big 5-0 with at a party at our house. And we finally got to see my dad and stepmom, twice!, after two years apart because of the pandemic. The kids were obsessed with the farm and the horses and the baby may become an outdoor survivalist.

The summer flew. So fast that suddenly we had 6th graders. Middle school. Sheesh. The boys played on the school football team and little bit ran cross country. Just over a month later, we were celebrating the trio’s 12th birthday. I also got a clean bill of health from MD Anderson (no check ups for a year!).

Now we’re nearing the end of the first semester and two of the three are playing basketball, while the baby decided to sit this sport out. The eldest is playing the trumpet in band and little bit is also training for cheer team tryouts.

And since it wouldn’t be a Vincent Christmas letter without a bombshell at the end, there is more big news this year. After a wonderful nine years at ExxonMobil, I’ve accepted a position as Assistant General Counsel for a business division of Honeywell. I learned so much and grew as a lawyer tremendously while at EM, and now I’m excited about this new opportunity in my career. As the icing on top, I will go from a 33 mile one way to commute to work to a ONE mile commute. God is good.

While this year held much good for us, we know so many are still suffering because of the pandemic and other losses. I pray we can encourage one another and hold each other up during these really challenging times. I don’t know what we would do without the support and encouragement of our community.

From the Vincents to you, we wish you a very Merry Christmas and a 2022 filled with great joy.