Posts Tagged ‘Broken Heart’

Day 220 and Counting… The Day Before Moving Day

Posted: April 16, 2013 in Love and Marriage
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Thursday, March 17, 2011

What a beautiful time of restoration this is.

This morning, Ceecee and I had breakfast at Gailey’s, an old fashioned diner downtown right near our new loft.  It’s become a special place for us and symbolic of our “new” marriage.

Afterward, we went over to City Utilities to get our service turned on at the new loft.  It sounds silly, I suppose, but it turned out to be the highlight of my day.

See, when we separated, I was there in City Utilities when she got service in only her name on the old loft, the one where she lived by herself before I moved back in.  I stood by while she said she was the only one who would be living there and that there was no one else on the account.

Today, my heart nearly burst when I stood with her at the same counter and I heard her say, “my husband,” when the lady asked her if anyone else would be living in the new place.

Once we were done there, we picked up the keys to the new place and started taking a couple of car loads of fragile stuff over.  Tomorrow morning, we get the truck and do the main moving.

I don’t like moving, but this is one move I’m truly looking forward to!

Day 216 and Counting… Restoring the Tornado’s Date

Posted: April 6, 2013 in Love and Marriage
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Sunday, March 13, 2011

My wife used to cook at Big Cedar Lodge, a world-class resort near Branson, Missouri.  I often used to sit behind the Worman Steak house, one of their top eateries, waiting for her to finish her shift at night.  Last night, we had reservations there.

Earlier in the day, we spent some time at Branson landing, a favorite hangout of ours.  It’s an outdoor mall right on the shore of Lake Taneycomo, and we’ve always enjoyed the atmosphere.  It just seems like people are usually happy there.

On a day when we were restoring the night of the tornado, and the damaging years that followed, being in a place where people are happy seemed incredibly appropriate.  We spent a few hours on the landing, then headed south toward Big Cedar.

I had not only made a reservation for a specific table, but had let them know who we were and why we were going there on that specific night.  I wasn’t necessarily expecting extra special treatment, since their service is always impeccable, but I figured it couldn’t hurt.

We had an amazing dinner, and did seem to receive some extra attention from the staff.  As we watched the sun set over the lake, we also received two complimentary Champagne flutes with the Big Cedar logo and the year inscribed on them.

We had our picture taken on the balcony outside as another keepsake before heading home.  It was a beautiful night, and just what we needed.

That’s the point of the restoration tour.  It’s not just an idea, but it’s taking specific actions to replace the old, bad memories with new, positive ones.  Instead of seeing March 12 as a traumatic day that altered our lives for the worse, we can remember March 12 as a night of celebration and beauty.

Day 213 and Counting… Looking Forward To Spring Break

Posted: April 1, 2013 in Love and Marriage
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Thursday, March 10, 2011

Really glad Spring break is next week!  This school year has been exhausting!

Last year,  Ceecee and I went to a resort in Branson over Spring break with Taylor and one of his friends.  It was fun, but not the way it should have been.  It was almost immediately after we got back home that our marriage fell apart and we split up.

That being the case, Spring break isn’t officially on the docket for restoration, but we certainly plan on enjoying our time off work this year a LOT more than we did last year!  Now our hearts are one, so our thoughts and desires will be on spending a lot of fun and romantic time together.  We will also be getting ready to move into our new loft, so it will be busy and we won’t be taking a trip away anywhere.

Day 204 and Counting… Finding a New Loft!

Posted: March 26, 2013 in Love and Marriage
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Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Sometimes, when things happen, they happen quickly.  Today was one of those days.

For some time now, I’ve been hoping that maybe Ceecee would be willing to look for a different place to live.  Where we are now is a great place in many ways, don’t get me wrong. 

We picked it out together, even though we were splitting up at the time, and it has a really cool floor plan and a great view.  Ceecee has done a great job of decorating and setting it up to be very stylish, and it has her personality all over it.

On the other hand, the walls are paper thin and a lot of the people who live here party at night and sleep during the day, so that doesn’t work well.  Beyond that, there’s just the constant reminder of the painful part of our recent past, and I’d really like to just start fresh in a place that we picked out to share together and has always just been ours.

We’ve looked at a few lofts, and even started to fill out an application on one, but never really felt like any of them were exactly what we wanted.  Today, I was browsing online and found out that one of the more desirable properties that rarely has available units had one come up. 

I made an appointment to see it, and while we were there, Ceecee whispered to me, “I think this is the one!”  I took the application, filled it out on the spot and went straight to the office and turned it in.  It’s going to be ours!

Day 174 and Counting…Restoring St. Louis

Posted: February 25, 2013 in Love and Marriage
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Sunday, January 30, 2011

The restoration trip to St. Louis has been more than I even hoped for.  Ceecee has been so amazingly sweet and loving and has just said and done everything right to make this an unforgettable and tremendously healing weekend.

When we set out in the car yesterday morning, we had to talk a little bit about we uncovered last Monday, which was OK, but I didn’t want to put a damper on the trip before we even started.  It’s just that we’ve learned through all of this not to let things sit and stew and become a problem later.  We’ve learned that you just say it and talk about it, but you do it in a loving way that puts the marriage first and any personal agendas to the side.

As we approached St. Louis, we had talked about where we would go and what we would do, but there was something that kept bothering me, so right before we got to town, I just asked my wife if she minded if I changed the agenda a little bit.  I told her what I was thinking and feeling, and what I wanted to do and she was more than fine with it.  She said that if it was important to me than we should definitely do it.

That’s how this weekend and how our “new” love has gone.  We communicate, we’re honest and open, and we put each other first.  I’m not sure why we needed to go through so much pain and heartbreak to get here, or even if we needed to, but I’ll never stop being thankful for what we have now.  I’ll also never stop trying to build what we have now into a house that will stand up to the test of time and the storms of life.

Day 171 and Counting…Back On Our Bikes

Posted: February 20, 2013 in Love and Marriage
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Thursday, January 27, 2011

The weather was nice enough to take our bikes out today, so we got in 12 miles after work.  Well, let me qualify that.  The weather was nice enough FOR US to take our bikes out.  Of course there are cyclists who ride year round regardless of weather, but we are not those cyclists.  We’re wimps when it comes to riding in the cold.

Anyway, it was a nice ride and the first time we’ve been on two wheels in a while.  This weekend, we’re taking an unscheduled restoration trip to St. Louis.  After what went down  Monday, we need to get to our city and fix some hurts and disappointments.  I’m a little scared of what fallout there might still be, but we’re also really committed to seeing ourselves healed, whole, and as strong as can be, so I suspect this is going to be a blessing on multiple levels.

Day 168 and Counting… A Setback and An Opportunity To Affirm

Posted: February 18, 2013 in Love and Marriage
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Monday, January 24, 2011

Sometimes it feels like no matter how much joy and newness we’ve found, the past will never let us go.  We’ve come so far and overcome so much and it’s truly been an amazing, wonderful journey.  At the same time, we both keep figuratively looking over our shoulders and waiting for things to begin to crumble.
These six months have had the highest of highs and some of the happiest moments of my entire life.  They’ve also had some real challenges and every time we allow ourselves to begin to think we might be in the clear to keep moving forward without any setbacks, we seem to run right smack into another setback.

Today was a tough one, to say the least.  Some things came out that weren’t supposed to come out and they were serious enough to threaten all that we’ve been able to build since last August.  It was a painful and frightening day and it reminded me how fragile our love still is and how much we really have come through.

On the other hand, it ended up being an opportunity to reaffirm, in the strongest of terms, our commitment to one another now.  It was a chance to show each other and the powers of Hell itself that nothing will come between us or destroy the love we are building.

Day 160 and Counting…An Unmanly Post

Posted: February 10, 2013 in Love and Marriage
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Sunday, January 16, 2011

I have a very unmanly confession to make.  One of my top favorite movies of all time is Anne of Green Gables.  Yes, as in “based on the novels by Lucy Maud Montgomery,” and made for a TV miniseries.  And….I own the entire set on DVD and watch them regularly.

I realize that I am now in jeopardy of losing my man-license and I have just written this for the entire world to read.  Why am I doing this?  I’m not sure, other than this is me and I’m telling it like it is.  And Ceecee and I had an Anne of Green Gable movie marathon at the loft today which involved crying.

That’s another thing.  I’ve always been a sensitive guy and I’ve been known to get emotional at movies before this, but now, since my change of heart and the things we’ve been through…it’s water works all the time.  I don’t fight it, though.  I know I’ve been through a lot of healing and there’s a lot of release that just needs to happen, so I let it.

Day 144 and Counting… Snowed In and Celebrating!

Posted: January 28, 2013 in Love and Marriage
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Friday, December 31, 2010

What a day for reflecting and being thankful.  What a day, period.  Make that, What a day, exclamation point!

It’s the last day of 2010 and I’m completely overwhelmed.  First of all, we’re back home.  We left a little early yesterday to race an oncoming winter storm.  It was moving from west to east and we didn’t want to take a chance on getting stuck, so we headed out and beat it back to Springfield.

It caught up to us after we got here and we’re pretty much snowed in, which is just the way we like it.  Our loft is right downtown, so if we need anything, we can walk down to the Bistro Market or any of the downtown eateries, but we’re warm, we have a great view, and we have everything we need.

Most importantly, we have each other, and a love that just keeps growing.  It keeps getting deeper and richer and I’m treasuring every moment of it.  Today Ceecee said I’m the peanut butter to her jelly.  That about sums it up, I guess.

It’s new year’s eve and when this year started, I had no idea that our marriage was nearly at its end.  I had pretty much been numb for so long, that I wouldn’t have known much of anything about what was going on in Ceecee’s heart or in her life.  I was just going through the motions most of the time because I wasn’t healthy and didn’t have any idea what to do.

Of course, the Spring was when our separation really began.  Ceecee hadn’t moved out yet, but she left me emotionally before she actually found her own place.  I spent the first few months trying to figure out how to stop it all from happening and the next few months changing, getting help, and learning to love her and winning her back.  By time school started, I had moved in to her place and we were gingerly putting the pieces back together.

The plan for the year we are calling the restoration tour was birthed then and it has gained momentum with each passing month.  There has been so much healing that I can’t possibly even attempt to chronicle it all here.  In the background, there is still pain and fear.  It comes from what we went through and some things we’re still dealing with, but it becomes less important as time separates us from it all more and more and we continue to make things new.

Today has been another one of those magical days – a fairy tale.  It’s the kind of day I had given up on.  Here I am though, living the dream.  I can’t take the credit.  It was God who brought this about and Ceecee’s heart that was willing to be changed to love again that’s made this possible.  This was both the worst and the best year of my life, if that makes any sense.  One thing is for certain.  I will never go back to the way things were.

Day 142 and Counting… Restoration in Old Dodge City

Posted: January 25, 2013 in Love and Marriage
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Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Had a nice run through the streets of Dodge City this morning.  It’s one of our least favorite places for a plethora of reasons, but it’s where Ceecee’s Mom and Step-Dad live and close to my daughter as well.  We’ve hardly worked out or trained at all recently, so we decided we better do some running while we’re here.

Dodge City was where we lived when my spiritual decline really began.  We only moved there because we felt that God was calling us to.  We went through a painful church split and a number of other things that caused a lot of bitterness for me.  We were victims of numerous property crimes, had some falling out with people we had been close to, and got into financial difficulties with two houses that we owned.

Although it was wrong to do so, I blamed God and began to shut down.  I started shutting off my emotions toward Ceecee as well, although I didn’t entirely realize it.  We finally left and moved to Missouri as kind of a plea to be allowed to go and try to start over somewhere else.

This afternoon, we went walking downtown and through the old neighborhood.  We reminisced and romanced and it was wonderful to be in a place where we had gone through so much frustration and pain, but now had overcome it and were in such a different place, both literally and emotionally.  We had endured everything that had come against us and come out of it more in love and better people than we had been before.

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