Debby Does…

Yesterday I had the pleasure of doing a phone interview for Emily Gedde at Minnesota’s White Bear Lake Magazine. The topic was vow renewals. I have a bit of experience there and was recommended to the writer by an dear Sanibel friend. I wasn’t really certain of the approach the writer would take, but it got me thinking about why vow renewals might be the very best thing to do.

When Jim and I got married in 1994, we were the first of our friends to wed and went to lots of subsequent weddings. We often thought we had done ours wrong, after seeing the extravagance of others. Ours was a simple backyard party, since we had bought our first house that same week. We chose house over wedding, so our nuptials, including honeymoon, came in at under $7500. It was super basic, just lovely, and all that we needed.

At ten years, we threw ourselves a really fun party, celebrated with friends, and had a grand old time.

At twenty, we got serious about it.

Over a three year period, we planned, dreamed, and got 45 of our friends to be as excited about it as we were!

When we got married in 1994, the only thing we changed about the traditional vows was the pesky word “obey.” At twenty years, we spoke from the heart. I still think about what I said, what it meant, and how much I believe it.

If you marry young, it’s all about the razzle dazzle and the things that go along with getting married—the ring, the engagement party, dress shopping, cake tasting, showers, parties, and all the fun of planning. Once you’re married, it’s off on the honeymoon, perhaps settling into a new home, and maybe having your first child. With that baby comes all kinds of pre-baby things, like gender reveals (sigh), showers, and gifts to welcome the wee one into the world.

Once you hit twenty years of marriage, if you’re still together, or, should I say, still happily together, you start to realize that the “things” are not the parties and the firsts. The thing is you two. It’s your growth. It’s your bond. It’s your survival, your unwavering love on a very hard journey of being a couple.

I sure didn’t understand that as I walked down the aisle, giggling at my soon to be husband who was crying. I guess I hadn’t thought that far beyond the actual wedding part. In those twenty years, I grew up more than I can describe, and Jim was very patient as I struggled through that.

What I loved about our vow renewal(s)—the plural is a whole other story—is that we were surrounded by the people who are taking the latter part of this journey with us and we were able to tell each other the truths we’ve learned over all these years with those dear souls by our sides. Are we marriage geniuses? Not even close. What we are are two people who were able to grow as we went along, learn, trust, lean on, and support each other in ways that our parents were unable to.

The thing is the two of us. It’s the Jim and Debbyness of us.

I love that the vow renewal gives you the chance to say that, share that, and take it into the next twenty, thirty, forty years, whatever the universe grants you. It’s a moment to pat yourselves on the back for doing the hard thing that is marriage and to thrust yourselves into the next part of the adventure.

Now, if only I could get my phone to stop typing “vowel” renewal. I guess it’s better than “bowel!”

I do. I do. I do.

And I always will. #jimanddebbyinfinity