Posts Tagged ‘separation’

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 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.

Day 29 and Counting…Ring Restoration

Posted: October 7, 2012 in Love and Marriage
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Saturday, September 4, 2010

I took my wedding ring in to the same jeweler that fixed Ceecee’s before we separated. Mine has been through a lot, and it’s developed a small crack on the bottom and is somewhat out of round.

He said that it wasn’t made very well and simply doesn’t have enough gold in it to repair the crack. He said he would need to add more gold to it and then it could be made stronger. I agreed, but told him I didn’t like the thought of being without my ring while the work was being done. I asked him if there was any chance that he had a plain wedding band that I could use as a loaner, so my finger wouldn’t be “naked.”

He didn’t, but he took a piece of white gold and went in the back and I could hear him tinkering around. When he came back out, he had actually made me a plain band to wear. He said he understood and that I could keep it.

I got a chance to share some of our story with him and he loved it. I hope that Ceecee will come with me when the ring is ready, because I’d really like to be able introduce her to him.

Day 25 and Counting… Mr. Turtle Moves Out

Posted: October 5, 2012 in Love and Marriage
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Tuesday, August 31, 2010

We’ve been having some silliness to offset last evening. Not that it was that bad, but we had to go back to the old apartment in Republic to get the rest of our stuff out, since the end of the month is here. It was just weird and awkward to go back there (Ceecee hadn’t been back since she left) and face all those memories. We also had to pick through stuff and decide what was worth keeping, what we wanted to get rid of, and what we could sell.

As we were leaving, I spotted this ceramic turtle that we had bought as a garden ornament in the gravel bed by the front door and I picked it up. Ceecee set it up on the dashboard in the car and took a picture of it as we were driving away. She captioned her photo, “Mr. Turtle and I are ditching this place.”

Now today, she’s setting “Mr. Turtle” up all over the loft and taking pics of him.

Day 20 and Counting… My First Tattoo

Posted: October 3, 2012 in Love and Marriage
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Thursday, August 26, 2010

A really cool step on the restoration tour today. We each got new tattoos. Well, I got my first, and Ceecee got a new one. I had told Angie and a few others my idea for a tat back when we were separated, but I had never told Ceecee until after we were back together.

I got the verse from Song of Solomon in a circle with her name inside, and we decided that two wedding rings linked together was the missing piece. We went to the same artist who had done Ceecee’s first tattoo last Spring and he wrote it up in this really amazing script. I got it on my upper left arm just below the shoulder and it looks great!

Ceecee got a Champagne glass on the inside of her left wrist with bubbles coming up. It’s really cool. When I think of that bottle of Champagne the night she moved into her loft, and of sitting with her when she got her earlier tattoo and of how much I wanted to be able to love her and have her love me back, I’m overwhelmed. This is what the restoration tour is all about. It’s about revisiting the times and places where we got hurt, let each other down, or just missed out on what was meant to be. Now, we can heal those hurts, replace those disappointing memories, and create new ones that are the way they should be.

Day 11 and Counting…Back to School

Posted: September 25, 2012 in Love and Marriage
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Tuesday, August 17, 2010

What an amazing and beautiful day today was. Usually I hate these “all staff” first day back and getting ready for the new school year days. This year, with Ceecee and I being restored and in love, it was a joyful day.

Yesterday, I had hoped that the Principal would give people a chance to share any news from over the Summer, so I could share the news. I realized that a lot of people there didn’t even know we had separated because we hid everything at the end of the school year and didn’t stay in touch with many people over the Summer. He never gave the opportunity, so I just told the team that I’m on and a few people during the day.

Today, we were there as happily married husband and wife and it was pretty special.

Day 8 and Counting… The Triathlon

Posted: September 20, 2012 in Love and Marriage
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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.

Day 7 and Counting…Friday the 13th

Posted: September 19, 2012 in Love and Marriage
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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.

Day T-1 and Counting…

Posted: September 10, 2012 in Love and Marriage
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Thursday, August 5, 2010

Things have been really good and a little weird all at the same time. It’s wonderful to be back together, but we haven’t really talked much about anything and Ceecee keeps saying that she’s not proud of what she did and that she hopes that I can accept her and she never wants to hurt me. I keep telling her that it’s my fault for not loving her and being the man I promised to be, but she’s carrying some kind of guilt or something.

Of course, my mind is all over the place with what that means. I’ve never suspected her of being unfaithful because she promised me she wouldn’t be and a few weeks ago, when I said that it had been three months, she said it had been three months for her too. She also said something weird about not wanting me to be upset, but she had exchanged gifts with this guy who is one of her old boyfriends. He’s been on Facebook and I’ve always suspected that he was interested in her as more than a friend, but he lives in another state.

Anyway, I know that anything’s possible, so maybe she had some inappropriate communication with someone over the internet. Maybe she did have some kind of a fling with someone, although I can’t imagine that. I’ve prayed and asked God, but He won’t tell me anything. Whatever it is, I keep telling her it doesn’t matter. We’re together again and things will never be the way they were and that’s what’s important.

Ceecee and I have been riding our bikes together this week and that’s been really cool. We’re planning on riding in the Tour de Cox this Saturday. It’s a 62 mile ride with a 43 and a 26 mile option. I don’t know that we can do the whole 62 miles. We’ve never ridden that far before.

Tonight, we’re going to Silver Dollar City for “Moonlight Madness.” That’s when they are open at night for just a short time out of the year and you can ride the rides in the dark. Should be fun. We only have one more full week of Summer before we go back to school.

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