Posts Tagged ‘marriage’

Day 85 and Counting…What Might Not Have Been

Posted: November 27, 2012 in Love and Marriage
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Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Our oldest daughter’s best friend is visiting from Kansas and Ceecee took a day and went to Branson with them. They intended to go to silver Dollar City, but it was closed when they got there. I guess it’s only open limited hours this time of year.

Instead, they went to Branson Landing, shopped, ate, and took silly pictures. I can’t help but think about what might have been (I should say what might not have been) if we hadn’t gotten back together. This was Angie, the same daughter who was completely distraught when we were separated because she believed that we had a marriage that she wanted to pattern her own after and then was shattered when ours seemed to be ending.

Day 82 and Counting…Riding the Frisco Line

Posted: November 26, 2012 in Love and Marriage
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Saturday, October 30, 2010

We decided to take a long ride on the same trail where Ceecee ran the half marathon this past Spring. That was the day my re-commitment to fitness began, and it was right at the time that our marriage as we knew it was coming to an end. I’ve never been more proud of my wife than I was that day. When she crossed the finish line, something changed inside me and I wanted to be a better man. It was too late for her at that time, but eventually we got to where we are now and I’m so thankful to be where we are.

Anyway, the Frisco Line trail is supposed to run 43 miles and it was built on an old railroad track that is no longer used. The trail head is about 7 miles from our loft, so the plan was to ride to the trail head and then go as far as we could, possibly all the way to the end of the trail. At the half marathon, they went about 6.5 miles out, turned around and came back.

What we discovered today is that it’s only paved for 8 miles and then it turns to gravel. Since we have road bikes, gravel wasn’t an option, so we did the only thing we could do. We turned around and headed back the way we came from. We had ridden 15 miles to get there, so even if we just went home, it would still be a decent ride.

There’s a little town called Willard that the trail cuts right through. On the way back, on a whim, we decided to pull into a little place called Coffee Guru and see what they had to offer. We didn’t have real high expectations and were blown away when we were served what I’d have to consider the best pumpkin spice latte I’ve ever had. It broke up the ride and it was just a fun little blessing on a beautiful day.

Black Friday? None For Me, Thank You

Posted: November 23, 2012 in Love and Marriage
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I always have to laugh at the irony that Ceecee and I often spend “Black Friday” on Chicago’s Michigan Avenue. The so-called Magnificent Mile is probably the country’s third most famous shopping street, after New York’s 5th Avenue and Beverly Hills’ Rodeo Drive. The irony is that we have almost no interest in black Friday, and certainly none in giving up our sleep to go after “door busters” and other such sales.

The reality is, we are there to spend a holiday with each other in our favorite city, not to shop. We go for romance, food, sightseeing, and making special memories, not to stand in line in the wee hours in hopes of purchasing things that we don’t really even want. It just strikes us as funny that we usually stay in a hotel that’s either on Michigan Avenue, or within a block or two, not because it’s Michigan Avenue, but because it’s central to so many of the things we enjoy in Chicago.

While others are preparing to go to great lengths to spend lots of time and money competing to buy material possessions, we are preparing to sleep late, eat a leisurely breakfast, and then go sightseeing, stopping in at a few stores if we so desire, but with no real plan for the day. We have nothing against people trying to get a good deal, or getting a jump on their Christmas shopping. We just have an entirely different agenda, and the fact that we are often right in the very heart of some of the most intense shopping you’ll find seems almost comical.

Anyway, thanks for reading and I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving this year. I especially hope you spent time with who you love and were thankful for what you have. Whether you bought anything today or not, I hope you have much to be thankful for. Those black Friday purchases likely won’t last or bring fulfillment, but your relationships certainly may.

Day 77 and Counting… Back Home

Posted: November 20, 2012 in Love and Marriage
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Monday, October 25, 2010

I had to ride my bike while Ceecee ran 12 miles this morning. I can’t run on my knee, but she’s still training for her marathon. It seems crazy now that when this all started, she was saying she was going to run a marathon to prove she isn’t old.

The game was fun yesterday. My team lost and hers won. We both cheered for our teams, but we almost wanted the other to win so that each other wouldn’t feel bad. What we have now is so good. I’ll take it over any football win anytime, anywhere.

We drove home through rain for most of the way, while listening to Jack Johnson on the CD player. The scenery was beautiful and we enjoyed every bit of it. Nine days of celebration surrounding an anniversary that almost wasn’t and now we’re back home.

Day 73 and Counting… An Anniversary Ring

Posted: November 16, 2012 in Love and Marriage
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Thursday, October 21, 2010

It’s amazing to be this blessed. Ceecee loved the ring and the flowers and posted that it was the best anniversary ever. Not bad for a casual, low-key day. I asked her if she had any idea that she was getting the ring and she said that she hoped that she was and she hadn’t forgotten about it, but didn’t want to get her hopes up in case she wasn’t. It made me feel good to be the hero who came through and did the right thing and made her hopes come true.

Tonight is date night, and we leave for Tennessee tomorrow after work. I’m kind of shocked that Macy’s actually allowed me to take all this time off. Maybe they knew that I probably would have quit and taken the time anyway if they’d said no. they know I don’t really need this job, but it has been nice to have the extra money to be able to do all these things.

Day 72 and Counting…A 14th Anniversary To Treasure!

Posted: November 15, 2012 in Love and Marriage
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Wednesday, October 20

So today is our 14th anniversary and for most people, that’s not a significant one. For us, there has never been one more significant, nor will there probably ever be. Just three months ago, there was very little hope that this day would ever come. I had spent months desperately trying to repair the damage and win back the woman I loved, but who I had not known how to connect with in a meaningful way for at least a couple of years.

I’m at work and we don’t have any big plans for tonight. I ordered a pretty nice bouquet of flowers and a box of chocolates to be delivered to Ceecee at work today. We’ll go out to eat tonight, but it will be pretty low-key. We went out Monday night, and last night Ceecee cooked me some of her lasagna which she only makes from scratch. We had a big time last weekend and we’re leaving for Tennessee Friday night and today just feels comfortable. There’s no pressure to make this one day any huge deal because we’ve been intentionally celebrating our love since last Friday evening.

Really, we’re just having fun. We are enjoying each other’s company and the simple joys of being in love. We each feel a deep sense of gratitude and appreciation for the fact that we’re together and we’re just kind of floating through these days. It’s like we’re under a spell and I’m sure not going to do anything to break it.

I did pull off a potentially huge surprise, though. My wife has been looking for a certain style of black onyx ring for at least two or three years now. She has talked about it and shown me different ones, but always said she hadn’t found the one she really wanted yet. Very soon after we got back together, she did find it. She came to see me at Macy’s in August and told me that they had the ring she’d been looking for downstairs in the jewelry department and that she had seen it on her way in to see me.

She told me how much it was and I pretty much acted like I wasn’t really listening to make her think there was no way she was actually getting it. In fact, I bought it the very next day and have had it hidden in a drawer at home ever since. It’s never come up again, but she’s getting it today and, as far as I know, she has absolutely no idea.

Day 69 and Counting… Our first 10K

Posted: November 12, 2012 in Love and Marriage
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Sunday, October 17, 2010

When we got to Springfield this afternoon, we drove straight to Old Chicago for some football and comfort food. We hadn’t meant to leave St. Louis so early, but my knee is way more messed up than I realized.

We ate breakfast in the hotel with our costumes on, which started some interesting conversation, and we got someone to take a couple of pictures of us. Then we went to the 10K and it was really a neat experience to take in everything from serious runners who were really there to compete, to some really great and even some totally outrageous costumes. The guy who won the costume contest made a huge cage and half a praying mantis sticking up about 3 feet out of the top of it. He made fake human legs hanging over the front, and his legs were praying mantis’ legs running on the bottom. He carried that thing for the entire 6.2 miles.

About 3 miles in, my knee just started killing me. I tried to run through the pain, but I couldn’t. I told my wife to just go on ahead and not let me ruin it for her, but she just kept saying, “We’re together.” She stayed with me while I had to walk most of the last 3 miles and not only didn’t complain, but made me feel like I was the most important thing in the world to her. I jogged a little bit here and there, but never very long because of the pain. When we could see the finish line, we took each other’s hand and ran the last part together. I almost fell because it hurt so much, but I was determined that we wouldn’t walk across the finish line.

After the race, I could barely walk, so after the costume contest was over and the prizes awarded, I hobbled to the car and we went for lunch and then hit the road. It was a shame to be hurt like that, but Ceecee was so wonderful and loving that it almost didn’t matter. I was just a little worried about what the implications were and whether I would end up having to have surgery on my knee.

Day 68 and Counting… The Day Before The 10K

Posted: November 9, 2012 in Love and Marriage
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Saturday, October 16, 2010

Beautiful day in St. Louis today. Got here in the morning and went straight to Soulard’s, a huge farmer’s market down by the river in the French district. They serve jello shots, which in and of itself makes it probably the world’s coolest farmer’s market. Of course we went to the zoo and visited the penguins and had lunch on the Hill. The weather has been perfect, and the day has been relaxing and fun. The only thing we had to do today was pick up our race packets and shirts, but we drove up this morning so we could spend the day doing our usual “day in St. Louis” things.

We ate a long leisurely lunch outside at Guido’s and I couldn’t help thinking of the day back in July when we sat at the same table with my daughter and the tide had really begun to turn for us. That day, I was facing the fear of never being able to work things out and the upcoming school year looming before us. Today, we were as relaxed and happy as two people could be and we just basked in the spirit of love and celebration.

In the afternoon, we picked up our race packets and t-shirts. Of course, we’ll be wearing our costumes during the race. We’re staying at a Drury Inn and they have free food and drinks in the evening, so we decided to go for it. Being foodies, it was a pretty funny experience. They had hot dogs and chips, Bud Light (which was ghastly), and a lot of stuff that we normally never eat. Then we spent some time in the hot tub and indoor pool. After a while, we got overrun with kids and my wife offended somebody by calling the kids critters, but we didn’t care. It was all in fun.

Day 67 and Counting… Anniversary Week Begins!

Posted: November 8, 2012 in Love and Marriage
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Friday, October 15, 2010

Our actual anniversary isn’t until Wednesday, but as of 3:00 today when we left work, anniversary week has begun! We are going all out and this is going to actually be a nine day anniversary celebration, because this is the one that was never going to be until the miracle of our restoration began taking place. It’s really almost 10 days if you count tonight, which I am.

Tomorrow we leave for St. Louis and a week from Sunday, we’ll be coming back from Tennessee. We’ve had some Cat Stevens references going back and forth on Facebook between us today. Ceecee wrote, “The wild world sent me home…where I belong,” and “You found your hard headed woman.” I wrote back, “And I know the rest of my life will be blessed.” We are the only ones who truly know how much that exchange meant, but let’s just say it did my heart a lot of good. On the one hand, I don’t really like it when she plays “wild world” in the car, because I know it represented her leaving me to go see what was out there on the wild side, but on the other hand, that CD was a gift of love that I gave her and there are some other songs on it that have become meaningful to us.

Day 66 and Counting…Opposite Sides Of The Same Coin

Posted: November 6, 2012 in Love and Marriage
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Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Got our costumes finished today for the Halloween 10K. Not everyone runs in costume, but a lot of people do and we wanted to come up with something that would be fun and also mean something.

We’ve been talking about it off and on for a while now, but it was my wife that came up with the idea that we ended up going with. One day, just out of nowhere, she said, “Why don’t we go as opposite sides of the same coin?” I immediately loved it, because that was the phrase that my friend Adam had used months ago to describe us

We were separated and Ceecee and I had gone to art walk with Adam joining as kind of a third wheel. When I talked to him on the phone soon after and asked him if he was confused about why Ceecee and I weren’t together, he had said, “You guys are one. You’re opposite sides of the same coin.” I had told Ceecee that he had said that, but of course, we weren’t together then, so she didn’t respond and I was very pleasantly surprised to realize now that she still remembered that and still thinks about it.

This is really what the restoration tour is all about. Revisiting the same literal, physical places where things happened while we were breaking apart, and also revisiting those memories, those words that were spoken, those actions that were done that hurt each other and that we would never do now that we are in love again.

So how are we going as opposite sides of the same coin, you may wonder?, We are wearing tight black running pants or shorts with long-sleeved black shirts. We made signs that go on our backs with black on white for one and white on black for the other that say “Opposite sides of” and “the same coin.” Then we used a projector at school to trace and draw the front and back of a Missouri quarter onto cardboard cut-outs painted silver.

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