Renewal

This is a long one friends, so I hope you have a good drink and a few quiet moments.

Renewal… there are many things we need to renew in ours lives.  There are driver’s licenses, insurance, memberships, and passports.  This kind of renewal is a continuation of something already existing, a “more of the same” idea.  This is not at all what our renewal was this past summer.  A renewal, as in making something new all over again, is what happened.

When Brian and I were planning our wedding all those years ago I knew we were young.  I knew although we had been together for over four years, and through some of those altering moments of college, that we still had so much changing to do.  I was only 22, and Brian 23, and before we even got married I proposed that every ten years we renew our vows to the people who we become through the interim years.  Our wedding came and went and it was beautiful and fun and all things a first wedding should be.  The honeymoon was fantastic and we met incredible people that we still stay in contact with today. 

The wedding was done and now the marriage started.  We had lived together for years before we got married, but now we were bound together for “eternity”, as we stated in our vows.  There was no getting away now!  Looking back I know we didn’t fully understand marriage and what that meant, and I am still learning today for that matter, but we were committed through thick and thin. 

We had our share of thick and thin through the years too.  We moved from North Carolina, to Chicago, built our first home in Chicago and then back to Carmel and then Noblesville.  We endured infertility for years, which as so many know is a huge toll on a couple.  We added four amazing little lives to our family within four and a half years, had serious unexpected health issues and were burdened with financial difficulties we were not prepared for.  We are different people today.  Brian is more of a man and husband than before and really comes alive as a father.  I have had a whirlwind change in me and slowly morphed into a more confident and independent woman instead of the clutching girl I was.  I have realized that I have choices about my life and so does he and we have always chosen to be together even through our hardest of times. 

Last fall I started planning our vow renewal and had all sorts of daydreams about the perfect ceremony and day and week.  Since we were sophomores in college we have been going to Oak Island beach in North Carolina and this is a magical place for both of us.  Every time we go it is a renewal of spirit and makes whatever feels empty fill again.  There was no question where this ceremony would be held.  It would be a small crowd of our closest family and friends.  Those people that have known us through all of our years together and those that have shared our relationship with us were invited.  We picked a date, I hand made invitations and placed them in the mail box with shaking hands as I anticipated all the fun we would have playing Frisbee in the waves, sitting on the porch in rocking chairs as the sun set and eating breakfast watching the dolphins ride the shrimping boat’s wake.  We would have a row of houses and just play together all week, all get to know each other better, spend time together and just relax and have fun.  The memories made would be endless.  The 16 invitations went out and the days crawled as I knew they were reaching the houses.  I received one reply right away and was ecstatic that they could make it.  Days passed and I didn’t hear anything more.  Christmas was coming and I was seeing all of these people and still nothing except for a passing statement, a brief “Oh, yeah…  that vow thing?” or, what was more often the case, silence about it.  Honestly,  I was crushed and very embarrassed.  I wished I hadn’t told anyone about the renewal and just done it ourselves because then I wouldn’t have known the reaction.

It was then that I started realizing one thing that hadn’t changed in the last ten years…  my reliance on others to make me happy.  If it wasn’t Brian (poor Brian…  I gave him that responsibility WAY too often), it was my mom, or my mother-in-law, my kids or my friends and probably my dog Bella if all else failed some days.  I was handing over the most important thing in my life, my happiness and contentment, to others.  The journey I talked about in my last blog post has been eye opening.  I have been able to retrieve that gift and hold onto it for myself.  My happiness is not the job of others, only mine.  It makes you look in the mirror a little differently and take accountability for your actions and reactions more, but I have never felt so relieved.  It is amazing to own yourself!!! 

As you can imagine, this has changed our marriage, and taken a strain off of both of us, because Brian too realized that he was giving me the same burden.  So, even from the time those invitations went out to when the renewal took place we changed.  We went into this renewal completely changed by events and realizations in our lives over the past decade and fully committed to rededicating our new selves to one another.

So, in many ways this was a first wedding for the Nellie and Brian of 2011 and in some ways a continuation of those kids that wedded 10 years earlier. 

The week started like only a Harden Family vacation can.  CHAOTIC! A three day car trip from Noblesville, to Bloomington, to Ashville to Oak Island with four small children in the van can be challenging…  yeah… that is the word.  But, after a long journey with some unexpected bumps along the way that we tackled together (sound familiar?) we got there!  We ran out to the beach, leaving the van doors wide open and just dove our toes into the warm sand, closed our eyes and soaked up some beach sun on our faces.  We touched the sparkling water without hesitation and listened to seagulls vying over washed up morsels, watched formations of pelicans fly overhead and felt the thunder of each wave as it crashed on the shore beside us.  This was living and we were there! 

Brian’s mom and stepdad soon arrived with my sister-in-law and nephew.  The ten of us and four Labrador retrievers shared a quaint beach house on that island for five great days. 

Tuesday morning, we woke up and it was THE day of the renewal.  The minister was coming, the photographer was scouting out picture locations, the weather was perfect and the beach was beckoning.  I was busy getting my four little flower girls ready and then myself.  Then it was time.  Brian went out and picked a large bunch of wild flowers from around our house and rationed out bouquets to us all.  Now, we were ready.  We were ready to come together as a family of six and commit to each other again, and to our children, before God and our guests.  We are together, now and for eternity, through anything life gives us.

                                                                  Here we go...

awaiting then...

and now...

The five of us girls walked down to the beach together toward Brian, the minister and everyone else.  So much different, but also so similar, to the first time ten years ago.   We met, joined our hands and held tightly to our girls while we all stood together and took vows to one another.  Brian and I wrote our own vows.  First he spoke to me and then the girls.  Now it was my turn.  I, of course, had to write it all down because I have a horrible memory!   We vowed to love and respect one another and our marriage.  We promised to wake up every day with the decision to be married, (because let’s face it, we are not head over heels in some harlequin romance novel every morning).  We would continue to grow as people and support one another in our growth through our failures and successes.  There was a kiss and a family hug and cheering and hugs and many pictures to capture the moment.  It was perfect.  I couldn’t have asked for anything more and no matter what visions I had for the day before they were all superseded by the reality.  Everything turned out.    

So, I guess my message for today is to own your life.  It is yours and was created only for you.  Don’t give others the burden of harboring your happiness, because that is your job. Also, don’t carry the responsibility of “making” someone else happy, they can only truly do that for themselves.  Own your failures and grow from them. Own your successes and be proud of them and share them.  Renew yourself, renew your relationships and you will find you have a renewed life. 

Sorry for the long post, but hopefully you find something in here that you can use in your own life to lessen the chaos in you.  If you want to see more pictures (and there are some great ones!) you can click on the right side and go to my picasa account and you can see all of them.  I promise this site will not be all so serious and I will be putting on a lot of tips and tricks I have used to make life a bit simpler.  But, it being the beginning of this blog I figured you might want to know who you are reading about.  I promised myself when I started this I would be truthful to my audience.  Thank you to the many who have complimented me, but even more than that thank you to all of those that have told me that what I am writing is helping them somehow in their own lives.  That is what it is all about!

Goodnight friends!