Gindi Vincent

The Dish on Career, Fashion, Faith, and Family

Marriage

Happy 16th Anniversary

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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.

15 Years

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Fifteen years.

Well, this one has been a doozy.

Global pandemic.

Two hurricanes hitting the farm.

Work at feverish pace.

Cancer.

Still. We got from Year 14 to Year 15 intact. 

It’s curious this marriage thing. 

One year can look entirely different from the year before.

That’s particularly helpful to remember if it was hard year. 

But this marking of years, these anniversary celebrations, are important.  These big circles on the calendar say, “You did it! You two, working together, hung in there and helped each other and invested in your family. No matter what hit you, you two are still standing.” 

I reread some of my earlier anniversary posts this morning.  You know, I used to label the years. 

I don’t know if I’m wiser now or life is just more nuanced, but I don’t have a catchy one liner to sum up what God has done in us and for us over the past twelve months. 

But those words from years gone by still ring true.  I remember how hard year 7 was when I penned: Don’t let the circumstances of the NOW fool you into thinking this will be your circumstances in the LATER.  Every day is a new opportunity.  

On our ten year meeting each other anniversary, I wrote a remembrance, and concluded: You have been one-quarter of my life. But it feels like all of it. Like you’ve been who I needed my whole life. And he has been.

I’ve tried to be honest. To write about how I make mistakes and try to learn (and I still have so far to go).  Year 9 I recapped some of that with a story with this moral: Hanging in there through the tears and triumphs teaches us how to spot our own relationship weaknesses.  Sticking it out through the best and worst of times makes you a better person.

This is what has been true.  We show up.  It’s messy and beautiful.  Hard and then easy.  Awesome and then not remotely awesome.  Our kids turn twelve this year.  That’s the age I was when my parents divorced.  I don’t attempt to rewrite what their story was but it informs how I live my story. 

Showing up.  He shows up and I show up with our flaws and our imperfections.  Some days we’re a little more present than others. In year 12, it’s what struck me too: He shows up. Every day.  On the days I’m good and charming and encouraging and amorous and funny.  But he still totally shows up on the days I’m sad or losing my temper or sarcastic or inconsistent. And now, three years after I wrote those words, they are still completely true.

I know it’s not true for everyone. I know so many have felt the heartache of leaving or having been left or someone taken too soon. This just makes me all the more grateful to be standing here on this fifteenth May 6th.

I’ll end with the line from the classic 10 year anniversary retrospective blog post, it’s just as true today: And my prayer is that I’ll still be writing all the new things I love about him at 20 years and 30 years and 40 years.

Happy Anniversary Babe! Here’s to the next 15!

New Look at Date Night

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Friday night, I went on a date with my husband of almost 15 years.

The fact that we went on a date isn’t the oddity.

It’s the fact that it was sort of like a real date, pre-pandemic.

We ate inside of a restaurant. Then we went to a lovely small venue to hear the band that was playing the night we met. 

I bought those tickets in February 2020 for our anniversary weekend May 2020. 

As you might imagine, the show was delayed. To September. Then delayed some more.

They finally reset the date for April 9th.  One month before our 15th wedding anniversary. 

I wasn’t all that optimistic going into it. 

It was on a Friday night after a hectic week and we’d been having some disagreements about several issues.  Sitting across from each other at a quiet corner table wasn’t probably high on either one of our lists. 

We used to have date nights once a month when he was in the restaurant business.  We’d slip off for a couple hours when the kids were little and have a drink at the bar at his restaurant nearby. Catch up. Trade information we’d forgotten to trade in the haze of the work week. 

It helped. Those date nights. Even in the hard years.

So off we went on Friday, leaving the kids with a new sitter (over their objections). 

Dinner was great. 

I’ve been getting some bids for a small home remodeling project and we were able to talk through that. As well as talk about everything from work to the kids junior high elective options. 

We walked across the street to this old refurbished theater and settled in.  Everyone was spaced out and the waiter was super attentive. 

The band came on.  Two guys who sing and play the guitar along with their three back up bandmates.  They sounded just like they did one night in December 2003 at the Mucky Duck. 

There are these parts with this very deep and powerful guitar and I could feel the music in my bones. 

I thought I would burst into tears. 

It felt surreal. After all these months. To be sitting there listening to a concert. 

I thought of this devotional my friend sent to me from  the Episcopal Diocese’s Rev. Mariann Budde: After an initial season of suffering, as healing begins, we have moments, even days, when we feel surprisingly strong and whole. We have energy, and a sense that our lives have possibility again, and indeed, they do. The joy we feel is overwhelming. Yet because we have no reserves of energy to draw from, we are quickly depleted to the point of exhaustion. And there’s no warning–one moment we’re fine and the next we simply must lie down, leave the room, or immediately stop whatever it is we’re doing. The good news is that we’re on the path of healing. The challenge is to be patient with the process…

We’ve all been so isolated.  I think back on the past 12 months in our lives.  Global pandemic, home schooling, two hurricanes, family contracting COVID, separation from family, cancer diagnosis and treatment. 

In one year. 

Last week started feeling somewhat normal. 

I returned to the office. My burns are starting to heal. My energy level is starting to increase.  The kids played their games and went to practices. Bray and my work schedule was nuts. We juggled all the things and did it with enthusiasm. 

But we have no reserves of energy to draw from.

We think we’re moving back into normal mode but then these waves wash over you. 

I feel joy but I can’t feel it in a vaccuum.  I feel it alongside sorrow. 

Sitting there, in the dark, feeling the music in my bones, I flashed back to law school.  I caught the live music bug there, in Nashville.  We’d go to these little venues, big ones too, but weekend hole in the walls were the best.  Emerging bands would play. It was the mid 90s and there was all this great rock.  We’d go hear Petty and Kravitz but I also remember hearing Alanis at law school before she released her first cd (remember, before streaming…). 

I would feel the music in my bones. And I had to go back. I needed more. It was my drug of choice. Live music. Whenever I could afford it.

Then I flashed back to that Friday night the week after Thanksgiving in 2003.  My friends and I went to hear Jackopierce at this tiny venue.  We went to the first show at 7.  Bray and his brother came at the break for the second show, although they actually came for us girls.  Bray and I had our first conversation with  Won’t you stay on the vineyard for the summer… and Get to know me better wafting in the background. 

I could see it all. 

But at some point in 2020 it felt like we weren’t going to dig out of this dark hole.

Of course we would.

But it felt endless. 

Concerts seemed to be particularly out of reach. No live music, maybe for years. 

Here we were. Music amped. One week after I rang the bell.  No more cancer treatments. Fully immunized and able to go to hear live music. 

I was talking to our waiter after the concert when we closed our tab.  This is the first time I’ve really be “out” since this all started last year, I told him. (The band said this was their first outing too! “Happy New Year” they proclaimed!)

He responded, I know. It’s been so crazy. And we need this. We need each other. We need community.

I’d missed it all so much.

Everything.

The people.

The waiters.

And oh the music.

It felt so hopeful. 

So I allowed a tear to leak out, and then I smiled, held Bray’s hand, and sang along, won’t you stay on the vineyard for the summer, won’t you stay on the vineyard for the year…

A Real Valentine’s Story

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I’ve written about this before. My penchant for tidy love stories. Hallmark endings – especially those Valentine’s ones all over the airwaves this week. Love without all the gritty reality like debates over money and schedules, tension, distance, silence. They are all cycles that pass, mixed with love and goodness and laughter and, sometimes, even romance. But the Instastory date nights give way to laundry and tired, rushed school mornings.

Bray and I will celebrate 15 years of marriage in May. We have spent every Valentine’s Day together since 2004. We do marriage utterly imperfectly but we do it together and we’ve stuck through some of the other’s highs and lows.

I will also admit that I’m not the easiest person to be married to. Shocking, I know. It’s no secret that I’m a control freak, struggling constantly to hand things over to God. That’s a messy and inconsistent battle. I’m also very opinionated. It’s a miracle I ever married. You may remember our first night meeting we debated over drilling in ANWR. (You can’t make this up!)

Luckily, he’s very opinionated too and isn’t scared of strong opinions.

We each have our really great points too. One of those is that we both love deeply, loyally, and empathetically. So when I’m suffering, boy oh boy do I know my husband is right there in the trenches with me.

Which is why these messy, true reality love story blog posts pop up when we’re in hard seasons. Usually when I’m facing some crazy medical challenge. He’s had his share of my medical stuff – weird brain cyst, knee surgery, infertility, gallbladder removal, C-section, etc., etc.

Cancer was one we didn’t predict.

My surgery last Thursday went well. Thank you all so much for praying. There are no words for the prayers, calls, texts, emails, messages, cards, etc. We felt completely covered.

The surgeon was able to cleanly remove the tumor from my right breast, as well as remove clean lymph nodes (thank you Jesus!). Then the plastic surgeon moved tissue from my left breast to my right one, and then pulled them both back up a notch so they will be a better version of their former selves. I have a drain tube in my right side, and between that tube and the lymphnode removal under my armpit, it’s the hardest hit area.

When I sleep, I have to lay on my back, not moving. My chest hurts and burns and itches and sears. My back aches from my immovability. But mainly this tube. It’s a pain and it causes pain.

My husband HATES blood. Really not a fan of needles, blood, medical goo. And yet. Every single morning and every single night, he clears my tube, empties my little fluid bag, and records it on a chart for the surgeon. I do not know how. Twice a day.

He brings me ice cold water with a straw. He juggles a really demanding job with school lunches and drop offs and groceries. It’s a lot on him right now, but he does it all without one word of complaint. All while taking care of me. And loaning me his big button up fishing shirts because they’re the most comfortable to wear.

I tried to shower this weekend, per the doctor’s orders, and remove my bandages, and I nearly passed out. I didn’t want him to see my scars but I could not dry off or get dressed. He’s outside the door asking to help and I’m juggling a towel trying to figure out if I manage without him (I can’t).

As I talked to two recent double mastectomy friends, a surgical process far more painful and invasive than mine, they shared their own reality love stories. These quiet husbands in the background we aren’t celebrating like we should.

One friend said she couldn’t take a shower for weeks. Her husband would help her into a shallow bath to wash. She was so worried about him seeing her scars and what it would mean for their future intimacy but he never stopped.

My other friend had FOUR drain lines. For weeks. She barely remembers that season because of her pain. Her husband cleaned and tended to all her lines every single day. When I called with a question about my line, she had to ask him because he had been the one taking care of them.

These stories aren’t on the cover of magazines. They don’t make tidy Hallmark movies (woman struggles with cancer, loving husband cleans her drains…). But these are what those vows were about. In sickness and in health.

This is love.

There is no bouquet of roses or candlelit dinner this Valentine’s Day that will compare with this romantic saga.

I look at those two pictures. The pretty Insta-worthy one from our beautiful date night before surgery. It was a gift. We had a blast. It’s important to do the romance stuff too.

But the second one is love. It’s the one of me after my shower. Hair wet. Dressed by my husband and settled into a recliner to relieve some of the pain.

Anyone can do a fancy dinner out. Dress up. Play some music. Sip on a cocktail under patio twinkle lights. Oh, but the other stuff. That’s harder. That’s what gets you to 15 years.

I’m no sage. I have no idea what the next 15 years looks like. And I’m a child of divorce and I know how quickly and easily those attacks come. Today though, I’m smitten. Besotted. Still taken by this husband of 15 years.

Grateful most of all.

14 Years

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Today, our little marriage turns 14 years old.

I used to classify our marriage years by a word or tag line.

That’s gotten harder over the years as the years get more complicated. There are high highs and low lows. There is great joy and sorrow mixed in together.

Some years, are more defined by one thing than the other. The job loss year, that decade mark. The Hurricane Harvey year.

Well, you might imagine what this year will be most remembered for.

The coronavirus.

But it’s silly really because there was a huge swath of the year that had nothing to do with this quarantine and economic recession.

We celebrated the kids turning 10! That’s right, our marriage survived TEN years with triplets!

We had a wonderful holiday season where our marriage was in one of the best places of its tenure.

After the New Year, we had a really terrible couple of months which we bounced back from but only just before we left for Spring Break.

We had a wonderful family vacation.

We had a couple’s getaway while the kids were at camp.

14 years and counting.

We still live in the same house that we moved me into after our honeymoon. Crazy really given all the houses I lived in growing up.

We’re at the same church. The kids are going to the same school now for four years. We have friends and jobs and health. This wasn’t a year where we found a hole in my brain or we went through brutal fertility treatments. We still have all our family members with us.

Marriage is hard. Don’t let anyone tell you newly engaged couples any different. But it is absolutely worth it.

I love Bray so much. More than I knew possible when I told him I’d love him ’til death us do part’ all these mornings ago.

It stormed the morning of our wedding. Brutal ugly storm. But by the time we were standing at the front of the church with a sanctuary full of family and friends the storms had moved off and the sun was shining.

A foreshadowing of the years to come.

Apart and together. Storms and sun.

We did good baby – I can’t wait for the next 14 years. Really. I’m not just saying that. I can’t imagine anyone else I’d rather do “all this” with than you.