The Restoration Tour

Saturday, August 7, 2010

So, where to even start today. Wow! What a crazy, emotional whirlwind the night and this morning was.

We went to art walk with Taylor last night for a little while, but Ceecee was complaining of a stomach ache, so we kind of cut it short. She went back to the loft and I took Taylor home to Republic. On the way back, I just decided that when I got home, we needed to talk about whatever is between us. I was afraid of what it might mean, but I could tell that Ceecee is being eaten up inside and we’re both kind of on pins and needles, so things couldn’t just stay like that.

I had told her several times that whatever happened while we were separated was in the past and didn’t matter, but it was affecting the present, so apparently it did matter. I prayed and prayed, but God wouldn’t give me an answer. While I was driving, I was listening to a song that said, “We’ll cry tonight, and in the morning we are new” and I took it as a sign to go ahead and talk about it.

She was pretty sick when I got home, so I felt bad about the timing, but I just told her we needed to talk. I asked her why she called me that day and asked me to move back in and what had gone on. We talked everything out and we did cry together. We ended up talking until very late in the night, and she needed to sleep to get to feeling better, so I finally let her go to sleep and I went downstairs and just sat and looked out the window. I thought about what all she had said and I prayed for about an hour.

What she told me wasn’t as bad as my worst fears, but worse than what I had hoped for. It didn’t change anything, and I was glad for her not to have to carry it anymore, but I wished it had gone differently. Even so, I was all about making the future different.

In the morning, it was crazy. It was like we hit a reset button and just started over. Of course, we had realized last night that we wouldn’t be going to the bike race, and we slept in late. When we woke up, it was like everything was fresh and new. I can’t really explain or describe it, but it was as if our love was brand new. It was like waking up the day after the wedding.

Ceecee looked at me with eyes of love that were so vulnerable and pure that I knew everything had changed and that our future was going to be very different from our past. There was a truth and an openness in her eyes that I’ve never seen before.

For years, I’ve talked to her about her walls that she keeps part of herself and part of her heart behind. She has always dismissed my words and said, “I don’t have walls. I don’t know what you’re talking about.” This morning, those walls were gone. I don’t know how or why, but when she looked into my eyes this morning, I saw all of her and it may have been the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

This afternoon, we were talking about how we felt bad about missing the Tour De Cox and a vision was birthed in me. They have it every year on about the same date (I think it’s the first Saturday in August), so I want to spend the next year restoring our marriage and have it culminate in exactly one year with some kind of a vow renewal ceremony. Just like I started restoring the areas I had neglected like her wedding ring and so forth, now I want to spend the next year continuing to go back and revisit all of the times and places that we hurt each other and let each other down and replace those with new, restorative experiences. I want to call it The Restoration Tour.