The Restoration Tour

So I guess it’s time to take a walk-through of the restoration project.  We’ve reached the point where the “house” is almost finished, and there isn’t much left to do except double-check everything to make sure we haven’t missed anything and that all is complete and in good working order.  Before we put the finishing touches on it and consider it good, let’s see what we have.

We started in the Spring of 2010, where we found a once proud and beautiful home completely run down by years of neglect.  The wife was figuring out how to get out, while the husband was figuring out how to get to work.  We started with the broken wedding ring and began fixing and repairing from there.  The above mentioned husband (yours truly) continued to build love where it had fallen down and build himself up so that he was fit for the task.  That allowed him to begin to build his damaged wife back up, so that they together could eventually rebuild the proverbial house known as their relationship.

Just like there is a lot of ripping out of damaged wood, tearing off of old roofing materials, scraping paint, and sanding floors, so there were a lot of things that had to go from our marriage, and much of it was painful.  The “making new” process involves removing the old, and no matter how difficult or unpleasant, it must be done if the final product is going to actually be better than the old one, as opposed to only looking better.  Covering up the problems would never have saved or restored our marriage.

Just like that wedding ring, our new “house” is much stronger than the old one.  In California, where we recently spent some time, we found out that when older buildings change hands, they have to be retrofitted with building materials and techniques to help them withstand earthquakes.  These aren’t necessarily visible in the final product, nor do they inherently make the structure more aesthetically pleasing, but when destructive forces come against those structures, they have a far greater likelihood of remaining standing.  In some ways, I’m sure our marriage doesn’t look as bright and new as it did in 1996, but now it’s prepared to last for the long haul, no matter what the future may bring.

Exactly one year ago today, the final phase of tearing down and destroying the old was taking place.  As soon as that was done, the day forever known as “the phone call” ushered in the phase of building together.  Instead of me doing the restorative work alone for the purpose of saving the marriage, my wife and I began to restore our marriage together.  About a week into that process, the concept of the restoration tour was conceived and is now nearly complete.

Our lives, both together and as individuals, have been overhauled and now we have a newly restored marriage built on the basis of the original one.  It’s the same foundation, but nearly everything from the ground up has been redone to be better and stronger.  We’ve taken a year to focus, very intentionally, on that single purpose, with this blog serving as a type of documentation of the journey.

Some of the smaller, subtle changes don’t rate an entire blog entry, but are very significant to us nonetheless.  One of the early ones was when my wife began changing her logins on some of her online activity to reflect her new feelings about out marriage.  We also began using new nicknames and endearments for each other.  These just happened naturally, which was much more meaningful than if they had been something forced.

We’ve also become much more protective of each other.  One morning we were riding our bikes and an approaching car got too near my wife.  I yelled at the driver and my wife had never heard that type of fierce tone to my voice before.  She said it was kind of nice to know that I was that determined to protect her.  When we went to my daughter’s graduation, there was a moment where someone approached me while I was upset, and my wife spoke out that I needed a minute and she told the person to back off.  With all we’ve been through, and knowing what it means to have temporarily lost each other, we both have a fierce determination that no one and nothing is going to get too near us if it’s not good for us.