My Actual Wedding Vows

 Two days later after I wrote that last poem, I married my sweetheart, Nick, on a beautiful beach in Maui.  We'd been officially together off and on since June 22, 2012 (our first date).  We had a very small, intimate sunset wedding, barefoot, with just the photographer, the minister, my brother, and his Dad and Stepmom.  It was everything I'd wanted in a wedding - small, private, beautiful, and barefoot by the ocean I love so dearly.  

Once we decided to go through with a wedding in Hawaii after Nick was supposed to have a work trip there, then it cancelled, we found a spectacular company online to help us work through the details.  The owner of the company, originally from South Africa, was our photographer.  He also authored our actual vows.  They had various options for vows, but this was the Hawaiian version and I loved every word of it from start to finish.  

"I receive you as my partner and love.  Beside me and apart from me, in laughter and in tears, in sickness and in health, in conflict and serenity, asking that you be no other than yourself.  Loving what I know of you and trusting what I do not know in all the ways that life may bring.

With this ring I promise to grow with you, to build our love, to speak openly and honestly, to listen to you, and to love and cherish you for all the days ahead.  From this day forward, you shall not walk alone.  My heart will be your shelter, and my arms will be your home.  With this ring I thee wed."

After forty-seven years, seven engagements, six fiancés, a slew of heartbreaks, therapy, peace, healing, and an extremely windy day in Wailea-Makena, I finally turned in my Runaway Bride sneakers.  :) 

Perhaps there was some deeper symbolism to that barefoot wedding after all.

On Marriage

 I'll just leave the poem itself and follow up later...

On Marriage

My vows will never say til death do us part

Nor will I obey you

Because life is short

Hearts are complicated

And I've seen enough to know better.

Present moment is what I have to offer you

Again and again

Until we decide otherwise.

I present peace, love and growth

For a timely amount of our existence together

Until it no longer suits us.

I love to let you live free

And I expect the same

No pointing fingers, no blame

If we ever have to walk away.

I will know we tried

And gave it our best

Until it could be nothing but our worst

In time and effigy.

We grew, we mattered to each other

But our parents taught us

Not to expect perfection

And heaven and hell taught me

Reincarnation was a far more logical option.

You love me, I'll love you

And we'll see where this thing takes us.

There will never be a happy ending

And one of us will sometimes, eventually always need more backing.

But for now this is where life leads us.

Let's not leave it lacking.

~SDC

9/5/23

Burn After Reading

 Hey there.  Been awhile.  :)  Thought I'd try something new.  Bought a deck of "Burn After Reading" cards at Target last year.  Just now found them (again) after doing a bit of a remodel on my home office.  So I opened them out of curiosity.  Some of it sounds a bit blasé, but I'm pretty sure we can get creative after a glass of wine.  Or maybe without one.

This card is called Quick Fire.  We'll see how many I care to answer and publish.  Ha!

"Firsts...

1) The first thing I bought with my own money

Oh that's easy.  PANTS!  A HAIRCUT!  MAKEUP!  GETTING MY EARS PIERCED! (NOT SURE WHY I'M TYPING THIS IN ALL CAPS LIKE A BOOMER but I digress).  Suffice it to say, anything NOT to resemble a Fundy or a holy roller any more.

2) My first love

As an INFJ I could go soooooo many different ways with this one.  My brain is literally running about 9 million miles per hour right now in eighteen plus different directions, from the meaning of love to trying to be silly ("Chocolate, of course!) to wondering if this means family or boyfriends or what, really-?  Could probably do a whole blog around this question.  But for now, let's go with an assumed opposite gender crush.  I'd say someone I knew from Crowley, Texas whose church we sang at when I was 12, possibly before.  I should have known I had an obsessive nature from that very experience, but nooooo, that took years and therapy later.  Ha!  Anyway.  I looked him up after I left the road and we became friends, as I'd moved on years prior.  I wound up inadvertently introducing him to my then pastor's daughter and dear friend (who used to date my brother).  They wound up marrying and becoming missionaries abroad for a bit and producing four adorable kids together.  She's really funny, btw.  And still a lovely friend of mine.  :)

3) The first song that moved me

Doubtless some lullaby Mom sang to me as a baby or the tune my beloved ancient Winnie The Pooh wind-up bear played when it was new...but otherwise, perhaps "Don't It Make Your Brown Eyes Blue" by Crystal Gayle.  We lived in West Texas my first six years (ACK!  I hate W. TX, but that's another story for another time). When I was about four years old my parents listened to a lot of modern country at the time (the early 80's), and I was rather fond of Ms. Gayle.  Mom told me one day, when I was about four years old, they found me standing in the back seat of the car, swaying to her eye-changing tune, singing my heart out into a hair brush, emulating every move Crystal did.  I announced I wanted to be a singer when I grew up.  Unfortunately, my parents didn't find my dancing very Godly, as they banned all secular music (except the Beach Boys, the Oak Ridge Boys and the Statler Brothers for a few more years) shortly thereafter and placed their kiddos on a firm Southern & Country Gospel diet after that.  Not even a lick of classical music was allowed, but I have developed a broadening appreciation for the genre in my adult years.  

But there were always laundrymats to keep us current with at least SOME modern secular music.  :)

*And now I must pause and go rustle up some dinner.  Back in a bit.*

Still On My Brain

All these years later.  You'd think, as happy and peaceful of a life as I have now, these things wouldn't affect me or still double me over in pain internally from well over a decade, many miles and moons ago.  And they don't - mostly.  But thanks to a subscription to Facebook since 2007, sometimes the memories come back to haunt me.  In the most random ways.

And sometimes it's seeing such hope at a beginning, knowing the heartbreak and disappointments of the years that followed, even when I've well and beyond moved on that catch me so unexpectedly and break my heart all over again.  Gosh, the regrets.  Things I'd do and handle so differently now.

But I rebound quicker these days, in time and through therapy.  

These were two of my biggest young hopes in my mid twenties and thirties.  Now neither will speak to me due to a life past, shared, full of regrets - one living soul pictured and one passed on.  Thankfully I made peace with the one who passed. before he left.  I hope sometime down the road before I'm gone I'm able to do the same with the other.

Perhaps I'll write more about this in time.  For now, it's time to engage with the memories and make peace with what was once more.

I'll see you in time.