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Gindi Vincent

The Dish on Career, Fashion, Faith, and Family

anniversary

Another Anniversary Post

May 6, 2017 by Gindi 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.

Filed Under: Marriage Tagged With: anniversary

The Anniversary Concert

April 30, 2017 by Gindi 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.

Filed Under: Marriage Tagged With: anniversary

And Now It’s Been 10 Years

May 6, 2016 by Gindi 1 Comment

firstkiss recep.kiss10 years ago today, I said, “I do.”  And then he said, “I do.”

And we did.

So you see, I’m feeling a little nostalgic today.  I’m doing a retrospective of our life so to speak.

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Twelve and a half years together.  Six and a half of those with kids.  And today, ten of those married.

I used to do convenient tag lines for our anniversaries.  My six year anniversary, I had our history all summed up.

I guess the more years pass, the more I struggle for a convenient label to paste on the year.  Because there’s so much wrapped up in any given year.  There were some absolutely spectacular highs this year.  We spent a wonderful week together in Yosemite over the summer.  We all traveled – from Alabama to Canada and from Vermont to Arkansas.  The kids started kindergarten and Bray and I survived doing homework (we were not ready) every Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday evening.  We celebrated birthdays together and each went through supporting the other through parents surgeries.

But it was also a year full of change.  Big change for our little marriage.  And we each struggled, individually, even though it seemed we relied on each other and encouraged each other more than ever before.

This year wasn’t without marriage bumps, but they were small, and if anything, the marriage grew stronger as we’ve come to hang on to each other when the tough stuff comes.

I keep a little book every year of the things I’ve learned about this man I love, and why I love him even more.  I’m still writing the pages from this year.

I’ve said, along with thousands of marriage predecessors, that marriage is work and love is a choice.  But I have to also say, after ten years, love these days hasn’t been as much of a choice.  I wake up so utterly grateful God brought us together.  I love him when I wake up and I love him when I lay down.  I love him when I hear his voice and I love him when I see his face.

We’re no Pollyanna couple.  We fight and we bug each other and we disagree, strongly, about any number of issues.

But I trust him.

I believe him.

I respect who he is and what he stands for.

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.

So 10 years, well, it’s been a rollercoaster year.  But I’ll take the ride with him as my partner until death do us part.

Filed Under: Marriage Tagged With: anniversary

Another Good Year – Number Nine

May 6, 2015 by Gindi 1 Comment

I’ve tag-lined my anniversaries. 

Last year was the Good Working Year. 

This year was a continuation of the same.  In the best and most wondrous way. 

After hitting rough patches in the past, I don’t for one moment take the gift of another good year for granted.  As friends have experienced distance and separation and even death in their relationships, I feel the enormity of having another good year.  Each year takes work.  Each year we have fights.  Each year requires compromise.  But I think we compromise better.  I think we love better.  I think we recognize our mistakes better.

Just this week, I made some “outraged” remarks in response to a certain future set of his travel plans.  It was completely unnecessary (and inappropriate).  I left the table, put the kids in bed, and went to bed myself.  When Bray came to bed, I felt God clearly nudging me to apologize for my bad behavior.  I do apologize, but some apologies are harder than others and this was one. 

I laid there debating whether to apologize and finally realized I’d be letting God and Bray both down if I didn’t resolve this before he fell asleep.  I apologized for the way I had reacted, and then the next morning I apologized to his dad who had witnessed the whole thing.  That was NO fun.  But five years ago, I’m pretty sure I would never have apologized.  Heck, I might not have even recognized how wrong I was. 

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.  That single moment taught me how to take responsibility when I’m out of line whether it’s in marriage or parenting or friendship. 

We’ve been together now for eleven and a half years. 

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We’ve seen pink lines on pregnancy tests after years of struggling. 

We’ve learned how to be a team better than ever because that’s how we have to make it work with two full time careers and three preschoolers.  

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Since the day he proposed, I have never once questioned my yes was the best yes I’ve ever given to a question. It doesn’t mean we haven’t struggled.  But I have never doubted that Bray is specifically who God selected to make my life fuller and saner and happier and zanier and unpredictable-er!

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I am so grateful to have another year to learn how to live well with the love of my life. 

Filed Under: Marriage Tagged With: anniversary, marriage

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