Gindi Vincent

The Dish on Career, Fashion, Faith, and Family

Marriage

The Better Valentine

by Leave a Comment

It was a dimly lit, upscale Chinese restaurant on Post Oak. He’d picked me up in his mom’s new Jag.  We’d been dating just over two months.

February 14, 2004.

Hard to believe, fourteen years ago.

I fell in love with him that night.

It probably sounds Hallmark-y and made up, but I did. I already liked him A LOT and the food was fine and the car was fun, but that had nothing to do with it.  He had been babysitting his nieces earlier.  They were nine, six and three.  I’d just met them the week before.  He had these funny stories, especially about the one who was in throes of the terrible threes.

As I listened to him, I fell in love with him.

We are, on the whole, a particularly un-Hallmark couple. I’ve written about it before.  And I don’t write about “us” a lot because he’s intensely private and never signed up to be married to a blogger.  (That’ll teach him to have triplets with a woman who loves to write… no telling what you’ll end up with.)

That’s why it’s important for me to remember that Valentine’s Day night all those years ago.

And when contrasted to tonight’s super-romantic offerings, I’d take tonight over a dimly lit restaurant on Post Oak every single Valentine’s Day.

What could top that night you fell in love, you ask?

Well, we woke up early and the whole lot of us opened our Valentine’s Day cards and candy. (The kids also got Legos but Bray and I will settle for a funny card and piece of chocolate – you know we’ll end up having to do the Legos though…)

Then he helped the kids get ready for school while I raced out the door for an early morning meeting at work.

We’ll both race home tonight because the boys have their first basketball playoff game this Valentine’s Day evening at 5:45. Their team has been really good this year, so we just found out this week we have two more games. One on the “most romantic” night of the year, and the other one Saturday morning right in the middle of a retreat I was supposed to have attended.

I cooked up some ground turkey last night so we could throw together some tacos when we get home, after 7. We’ll need to read with the kids.  Luckily ONLY read because we did all their homework last night in advance for the week.

A kind executive gave me some really good wine for a deal I negotiated, so I have big plans to open a bold red wine when the kids go down (highly likely close to 9 pm, between basketball and being hopped up on Valentine’s candy). I know my challenge has no sugar, including alcohol, during the week, but I’m making an exception.

We’ll probably drink one glass before falling, exhausted, into bed.

I will take this night over that night 14 years ago any time I’m given the choice.

I’m so glad I have those butterflies from 14 years ago.

They got me these triplets today.

And I’m also fully aware that a decade from now we’ll have the chance to go out to high end, dimly lit restaurant on Valentine’s Day evening. We won’t, because we both agree it’s a ridiculous waste of money.  Maybe I’ll cook.  But the house will be empty.  And we’ll only have had playoff games for Valentine’s Day for such a brief time.  I’ll probably cry and wish for it all back.  We won’t have Legos to set out on the table in the morning.  And we won’t have little faces upturned with excitement.

So you see, I’m in love with our Valentine’s Day. And I’m praying we’ve got several more in store just like this one.

No One Can Stand Between Us

by 2 Comments

We all five filed in the pew.  Sundays in the summer mean sporadic church attendance because of all the travel.  I couldn’t remember the last time all five of us made it on the same morning.

We attend a contemporary service, often to my hubby’s chagrin since he’s less enthusiastic about electric guitars in church.  I, on the other hand, love the music.

As we stood singing, I grabbed the hand of the man I fell in love with over 13 years ago.  The lyrics to one song sank deep into my bones:

God with us,
God for us,
Nothing can come against,
No one can stand between us.

I’m sure the songwriter had the collective “us” in mind when he wrote the song.  I couldn’t help but take an entirely different meaning away.

If you’ve been married for longer than two months, you’ve probably had a bad day in your marriage.  If you’ve been married longer than two years, you’ve probably had a bad month or two.

As I squeezed my husband’s fingers, I sang those words like a battle cry:  Nothing can come against, no one can stand between us.  I planned to claim another victory on the field of the enemies who attack our marriages.

We’ve had good days and bad days and good months and bad months.  Our start to the summer was no piece of cake.  There’s so many moving parts with his stuff and my stuff and the kids stuff and it gets messier in the summer.  (I know some people LOVE summer. As a schedule person, I crave the routine of the school year with kids.)

But it’s been a good month.  I felt like we stepped off another battlefield having reclaimed our ground. The song this morning reminded me how you come back stronger.  How you battle through the hard and the roots grow down deeper.  The Bible reminds us of this:  And the God of all grace… after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. (1 Peter 5:10)

I do not understand the why and the when of the hard patches – in marriage, in family, in health, in work, in whatever the obstacle.  But I pray I never cease being thankful for (or recognizing) the growth on the other side.  The healing.  The strength.

Tonight, the eldest commented I had too much romance in my life.  When I asked why, he said because you’re always kissing people.  Who am I always kissing, I inquired.  Daddy, he replied.

It’s not just about the kissing, but I’m grateful for that part of it too.

 

Another Anniversary Post

by Leave a Comment

It’s time for another anniversary post.

But in the seven years I’ve been blogging, I’ve learned an important lesson about blogging about marriage (the hard way).

Early on in my blogging life, maybe because I felt like no one was reading the thing, I wrote more about marriage. If we were going through a rough patch, I might write a thinly veiled story about marriage ‘generally.’  One day, my hubby got a call from someone close to him who asked, “are you guys alright?”

Ahem.

We were, but we’d hit a speed bump which I blogged about ‘generally.’  All marriages hit speed bumps, probably hundreds of them if they last decades. Most of them aren’t public, though. So my husband and I talked and agreed that since only one of us was a blogger (and the other one intensely private), I needed to stick to my part of the story and leave his parts off the blog.

I write infrequently about marriage for that reason. One exception is the annual anniversary post. Because, while I write about many topics, the genesis of this blog was to chronicle our family of five’s journey for our family of five.  Yet every year isn’t sunshine and roses.  That can be because of either or both people in the marriage OR because of outside circumstances completely out of the control of either spouse.

The latter reason is why our year has been hard. Probably the hardest since year 7.  That year we gritted our teeth and hung on – illustrating love is a choice not a feeling.  By year 8, we’d come out of the shadows and were stronger for it.  Because I blogged during year 7, I went back and looked at that post:

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.  A very wise friend gave me her “three steps” to working through tough spots when she had just gotten through her own tough spots.  I won’t write them all down because she’s going to make a zillion dollars when she writes it out all, but I will share some of her wisdom.  Some of her words hinge on the fact that I get particularly anxious about marital challenges because my own parents got divorced.  Even though we are both so committed to making this work, and I know the ups always follow the downs, I still have scars on my heart from that divorce.  She shared how you pray for your husband in tough times,  you don’t assign blame, and you surrender: “You are being given the opportunity to learn to love your husband the right way – without fear he will leave you.  You can love him, no matter what he does.  You have to confess any wrong you have done, but you can’t let guilt drive your decisions. Your husband didn’t save you.  You have to let the Lord free you of your dependency.  This is where it gets really hard, but you must surrender your husband and marriage to the Lord.  You tell the Lord:  Do whatever you must and I know you will sustain me because You want me to find my wholeness in You alone.  I trust in YOU, Lord.  Not anywhere or anyone else…  In praying this, you assure your marriage will not end like your parents.  I know that fear is hounding you.  In surrendering to God, like Hannah, the Lord will honor you.  Your heart will be pure and your reverence for Him will grow more complete.  The sooner you surrender, the sooner the Lord can come in and get His work done.”

The sooner you surrender.

That’s no fun.

But it’s the only place God can work.

I remember Bray telling me how incredibly hard our last year of infertility was for him. I said, “I rarely saw that.” He replied, “Well, I couldn’t really show you because you were so devastated.”

Such a good man.

And it’s true. I was a wreck.  He held it together. But he still suffered enormously.  This year, it was my turn to repay the favor.  It’s been hard, but I was supposed to support him without unraveling.  I haven’t been as magnanimous.  I’ve struggled visibly and lost my patience and let my self control and sense of commitment to others over myself erode.

Even still.

We kiss each other goodbye every morning.

We say I love you every night.

On days apart, we talk at the end of every day to check in.

Even in the hard, or even more so because of the hard, we are committed.  We do laundry and meals and he pitches at the boys baseball games and I hold front row seats for the kids spring musical and we go on Spring Break adventures and we pray with the kids and he tolerates me dancing like a fool to Tom Petty.

We did 11 years.

And we will do 11 more.  Then 11 more.  Until death do us part.

The Anniversary Concert

by 2 Comments

So it’s NEARLY been 11 years of marriage.  Technically, the date falls next week.  But since my favorite rock star, Tom Petty, came to town this Saturday, we made this weekend our anniversary celebration.

Last year, we scaled back our plans to get back to Maine (where we honeymooned) and spent a quiet weekend in the Hill Country.  A full three days to ourselves, a must-do given we hit the decade mark.  We went louder this year.

I have thoughts about this intervening year which, maybe, I’ll pen next week.  I used to “recap” what each year represented.  This year, I’m still trying to figure it out.

But last night was about fun.  I adore Tom Petty.  I’ve heard him four times live now.  Joe Walsh opened for him.  That dude is turning 70 and still played an electric guitar better than anyone playing today.  (Tom Petty is a spring chicken at 66.)

We checked into a hotel near the concert venue because, if you’re from Houston you know, trekking back to town at midnight after being up north is no fun.  We found a cool bar/bistro where we settled in to toast to 11 years before the concert.  The picture of us cracks me up because I’m always stopping people and asking them to take our picture for “occasions.”  I told the lady snapping it, “it’s our anniversary!”  Bray retorted, “no it’s not.”  The lady looked at me like maybe I was a few cards short of a deck.  I tried to clarify, “it’s 11 years THIS week.”  If you could see the iPhone live version of this photo it would make you laugh too because I’m still explaining while she’s shooting.

We walked from the bar to the concert and could hear Joe Walsh jamming from outside the venue.  I don’t really know his music but, after a quick Google search, I found he joined The Eagles and his first album with them was Hotel California.  (I have a soft spot for this tune as I remember dancing to it at the last dance of senior prom…)  We found our seats and I felt very young, an increasingly rare phenomenon.  More on the seat assignment later.

Finally, on comes Tom.  Man on man.  Have you heard this guy talk?  One of the most distinctive voices anywhere.  And between every single song he thanks the audience for the raucous cheers and applause.  Love him.  He starts playing some CLASSICS!

How can you not be up dancing your tuckus off when Toms’ singing Last Dance with Mary Jane or Free Fallin’ or You Wreck Me live?  I. Do. Not. Know.  YOU MUST BE UP DANCING.  Here was the problem with our seats.  The concert was at the amphitheater up in the Woodlands.  There’s a big covered “front” section.  Those seats are expensive and beyond my budget.  Then there’s a longer narrower middle section that’s also covered.  That’s where I get tickets.  There never as close as I want but still covered (which helped when the rain hit) and have assigned seats.  Finally, there’s a huge lawn section crawling with people unconcerned about weather or everyone else’s cooties.  Everyone in the expensive seats are up and dancing.  Large swaths of the lawn ants are up and dancing.  But all the old, not too rich people, in the middle narrow section are NOT standing up dancing.

This is when it hits me that I’m 43, don’t know anyone, and could care less if I look like a nut job dancing my life away.  This is my favorite rock star and he may never do a big tour again.  So up I go.  Dancing to beat the band.  Probably nearly knocked out my seat neighbors with my rear end rocking all over the place.  (I tried to maintain some decorum, but with some of those songs, C’MON!)  My husband, of course, is not standing.  He’s not a dancer.  He tolerates my enthusiasm.  And we rarely go to concerts together.  (Probably WHY we’ve stayed married 11 years!)

Tom played every single song I wanted him to play.  That NEVER happens.  How can you have a 40 year career and play every song someone wants to hear?  He did a whole subset from his Wildflowers album (including Wildflowers, which is not always a fan favorite) which nearly made me pass out, ala 16 year old boy band mania.

Near the end I made my darling husband stand up to at least get one photo of us together to prove we were there.  He humors me.  It’s a good thing I’m around or he would have no photographic evidence of his existence.

I paid for all the dancing today though.  Y’all, I’m not 25 anymore.  My knees are killing me.  I need more exercise.

Here’s what the concert reminded me (besides my eternal love for Tom Petty).  I love music.  Really truly adore music.  I sing at the top of my lungs (when it’s really loud music and no one can hear me).  I dance. Have fun.  Laugh.  I think I’m cool again.

We forget to do fun things for ourselves.  We forget what our younger selves loved and shelve it somewhere in the back where it gets dusty.  Let’s cut that out.  Make time for the thing you loved to do when you were young.  I went to concerts all the time when I went to law school in Nashville.  I was decently cool then and loads more fun.  Concerts remind me I want to have long deep laugh lines and sore knees.

Roll your windows down.

Blare the radio.

Embarrass your kids or your husband.

Laugh and sweat and play and have fun.

Dance when everyone else is sitting down.

Love Without Shades

by 3 Comments

I could hear someone talking before I could see him.  Last thing I remembered, I’d been in a cold room on an operating table with bright lights overhead and busy workers in scrubs strapping down my arms and legs as an oxygen mask lowered.

Next thing I know, a deep voice coaxed me out of my sleep.  Nurse on the right of the hospital bed, Bray on the right.  The nurse was explaining things to Bray as he held my hand.  I closed my eyes again.  So tired.

My pesky diseased gallbladder was gone, Bray reported later that day.  He helped me get dressed and into the wheelchair.  He drove me home and showed me some big black stones the surgeon extracted to show the kids.

I hurt and was tired.  Bray ran around getting me comfortable.  More pillows.  Medicine.  Water.  Chicken broth, eventually.  By evening the air in my belly sent shooting pain through my shoulder leaving me in tears over the pain.  I couldn’t lay down because of the pain from all the air which required walking to moderate, but the walking set my scars to searing.

He tried everything.  He held my hand. Rubbed my back.  Googled solutions for the pain.  My belly was swollen and bruised, my hair flat against my head, and my teeth unbrushed since morning.  We settled on a heating pad as a temporary solution so I could lay down.

There was nothing beautiful or romantic or glamorous about the moment.  But it was the perfect demonstration of love on Valentine’s week.  A clear picture of love without shades.

All week I’d thought about another one of these Shades movies coming out for Valentine’s week.  It broke my heart to think people have started believing love comes in those shades.  I’ve not read the books or seen the movies, but I know enough to know true love doesn’t look like twisted connections in high end sheets.

I’ve known this man for over 13 years.  We’ve been married nearly 11.  He doesn’t buy me jewelry. I’ve never been surprised with a trip or spontaneous adventure.  He doesn’t send flowers.

It used to bother me.  In the early days when Hallmark defined my notions of love.

Now I know what love really looks like.  This is the fourth time my husband has sat with me in a surgical gown.  He’s had to take a call from a waiting room to authorize doctors to cut me open and remove a tumor from my uterus.  He’s held my hands, loving me at 95 pounds heavier than usual, as doctors pulled three little babes out of my womb.  Just two years ago, he wheeled me out of a surgical center with my knee outstretched after repairs to the bone.  And here again, he was the constant, ready to help me heal.

I know I can count on him.  I know he wants to do everything in his power to keep me from hurting, not to deliver pain.  Now, we can hurt each other.  Don’t get me wrong.  We’re human and we hurt each other by not doing the right thing or saying the wrong thing.

But I know true love isn’t roses and perfect bodies and surprise trips to Paris.  It cleans up vomit in the middle of the night.  It rubs your shoulders when the pain is closing in.  It holds your hands and feeds the kids and washes clothes. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  (I Cor 13:7)

Your love may not look like the facsimile projected on the screen or written on the pages, but don’t long for that.  The real love, the kind which lasts, is found in the quiet small moments of your everyday life.  It showed up this past week like a symphony, sunlight not shade, and reminded me how powerful the real thing is.