Sunday, September 12, 2010
Wish we could have just frozen this weekend in St. Louis and made it last forever. These days were about as close to perfect as any have ever been in my life. We went to all of our favorite places, laughed until our sides ached, and I’ve got to be the luckiest man who has ever lived.
Friday, September 10, 2010
We played hooky from work and went to St. Louis this weekend. That’s a little tricky to do, since we both work at the same place. We can’t really just both call in sick, so I put “out of town appointment” as the reason to be gone. I figured they’ll assume it’s a doctor’s appointment and I won’t tell them any different.
Ceecee and I are going through this amazing awakening in our marriage and it just keeps growing. Everything seems new and we are experiencing things we never knew were possible. I don’t how long it can stay like this, but I’m pretty much living the dream right now.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Got my wedding ring back from the jeweler today. He did a great job. My Mother gave me some of her really old gold jewelry that she doesn’t wear anymore, and I gave it to the jeweler, so it hardly cost any money to get my ring done. I also got to introduce my wife to him, which was extremely cool, since he repaired both of our rings, one before we split up, and one after we got back together.
Monday, September 6, 2010
Labor day, indeed. So glad this weekend is finally over. I’m still working at Macy’s, as well as teaching, and we just finished our Labor Day sale. It’s one of the two biggest sales of the year in the furniture and mattress department where I work.
I had to work all three days and it was insane. I’ve never been nearly that busy and we had a major system crash with our computers right in the middle of it. Ceecee and I don’t really need the extra income now, and I’ll probably only stay until right before the holidays. We usually travel over Thanksgiving, so this will help pay for all that, but I’m not willing to get stuck having to work and not be able to go anywhere.
Ceecee ran 20 miles in her training for the marathon over the weekend. I don’t know how she does it.
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Ceecee wrote, “I’m a 10 cow wife!” on her Facebook today. It goes back to a story we read years ago, and we even watched a cheesy movie about it on DVD once. It’s about a guy named Johnny Lingo and he lives on an island in the tropics. He is legendary for being able to make deals for just about anything, but the people from his home town say he moved away after he married a poor, ugly girl and that he gave 8 cows for her, which is a crazy amount of cows to give for a wife.
Anyway, the person telling the story decides to go find Johnny Lingo, and when he does, his wife is the most beautiful woman he has ever seen. It turns out that him valuing her that much changed the way she saw herself, and she transformed into an entirely new woman.
I can never express how much this means to me. For years, when I was frustrated with our marriage, my main source was that my love for Ceecee didn’t seem to make any difference for her. She came with a lot of baggage from her past, which is fine, but I always believed that being my wife would eventually heal her and set her free from all that.
When years went by and nothing changed, it made me feel useless and like a complete failure. Of course I realize now that I wasn’t loving her properly, and that most of my motivations were selfish, so to read that this morning on her status really made my heart leap with joy!
Friday, August 20, 2010
Well, it seems I was right. The last 2 days, Ceecee has written loving things about me on her Facebook. We had our Einstein Bros. Bagel Friday this morning on the way to work and we went for cupcakes and cheesesteaks downtown this evening. Life is good!
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Ceecee and I rode our bikes to work today. The kids don’t come until tomorrow, so it was still just a teacher work-day and we figured that would be a good day to ride so we would know how long it took and what it was going to be like. The showers in the locker rooms are pretty awful, but they’ll have to do.
On Facebook, Ceecee wrote, “What a great ride to Ozark with Brian.” It seems crazy and insignificant, but it was the first time she has mentioned me on there since all this has gone on. I took it as important.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Pretty disappointing and confusing morning today. The part of our life that is still way out of whack is our spiritual life. Mine is better than ever, but Ceecee is still having a really hard time with that aspect.
She is very angry at our old church for not helping or being there for us when we were having our problems and she has been angry at God for not intervening when I messed up. I know that she still believes and that God has worked in her life to bring us to this point, but she’s not where she needs to be.
Anyway, she agreed to go to church with me this morning to North Point, the church I’ve been to a couple of times. We’ve talked about it several times and she was pretty nervous about it because of her tattoo and all, but I’ve told her that it won’t matter there. So we went and I had high hopes that she would like it and that God would have something on tap that would speak to her.
Instead of having regular church, they were having some kind of panel discussion about the past, present, and future of the church. They just sat up there and talked about the church’s history and what they have planned. When we were leaving, Ceecee said it was a waste of time and she was kind of upset.
I didn’t know what to say or do, but I knew I needed to not react the way I used to. I knew that I needed to not judge her or be upset with her, so I just tried to be understanding and be concerned about her, not myself. I felt terrible and I also was a bit disappointed that God hadn’t answered my prayers. I was kind of like, “Really? This is what we got her first time back to church in months?”
Today is our last day of Summer vacation and I go back to school tomorrow. Ceecee doesn’t report until Tuesday. I am soooo thankful that we’re back together. I can’t imagine what we would be doing if we hadn’t worked things out.
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Ceecee was angry this morning before I left. She said it was because she had really wanted to be in the triathlon and she’s upset that she can’t be. She went off to run 17 miles with her group while I headed back to Republic.
The atmosphere at the Tiger tri was really amazing. It was extremely well put on and was a great experience. The crazy thing is that my worst fear was having a flat tire and I did. I even went to a bike shop and bought new tubes yesterday as an extra precaution, but about 11 miles into the bike race, my front tire was gone.
I’m not good enough at changing flats to do it quickly and I was only about a mile from the transition area so I just got off and ran my bike in. I was so disappointed because I felt like I had been doing pretty well up to that point, but then I was really tired during the run. I actually struggled with some doubt as to whether I was going to make it as the run went on, but I kept thinking of my wife and praying for strength.
Crossing the finish line was indescribable. It was really hot and they had people with cold, soaking wet towels who literally took hold of us as we came in, put one of these towels on us and put drinks into our hands. I was a bit disoriented from the heat and from being so exhausted, so I just kind of wandered around a little bit in the grassy area off to the side.
After a few minutes, I went inside to the restroom and then it really hit me when I came back outside. All the emotion going back for all those months just caught up to me and I just lost it and cried right there in front of everybody. Then I just wanted to get to Ceecee more than anything.
I met her at the Meyer Center about 30 minutes later with Einstein Bros. Bagels and she was pretty wiped out from her run. We both had to work today, so we got to spend a few minutes together there in the lobby and then we had to shower and change and go to our jobs.
So that was it. The triathlon is over and I did it and our marriage is back together again and better than it ever was before.
Friday, August 13, 2010
Friday the 13th indeed. I’ve had a lot of time to pray about the mess. God told me that Ceecee is handling it correctly and to let her. I was listening to a song and the chorus really spoke to me. It says, “The pressure makes us stronger, the struggle makes us hunger, the hard lessons make the difference, and the difference makes it worth it.”
It partly goes back to while we were separated. This guy from her past came back into her life and she didn’t realize at first that being friends wasn’t what he wanted. Apparently he is convinced that she should be with him and is sending her messages to that effect. I’ve asked God what to do and He says, “Love him.” I don’t know how, so I am praying that he will find the Lord and leave us alone and do what’s right. Otherwise, I’ll just stay out of it for now.
Tomorrow is the triathlon. I’m still excited about it, but it seems really anticlimactic now. Ceecee won’t be there, which is disappointing. She has a long training run with her Galloway group. She’s still getting ready for the marathon, which will be in November. It was still pretty cool going to pick up my race packet this afternoon though.
The Restoration Tour 