Appointments For Adventure 8: Make a Vow
Yesterday I went to the wedding of the daughter of family friends. Each wedding has its own flavour, as does each couple, but each time I attend a wedding when it gets to the vows part I feel a sense of gravity. This is the real part of the wedding for me.
A vow is a solemn promise.
An oath.
It’s a word of honour.
A pledge.
A commitment.
I think should consider the cost, consider the alternatives, make sure this is something we can carry through before we make a vow.
Life is a series of extremes and not everyone can keep every vow, even if they intend to. Sometimes others break the vow they made to us.
Should that stop us making vows?
When my husband proposed to me, I told him I’d get back to him. I wasn’t sure. I wanted to backpack around the world. Marriage wasn’t the sort of vow I wanted to make at that stage of life.
However, I did get back to him and I told him, ‘Yes, maybe.’
A few months later I told him, yes.
Fortunately, he was patient enough to wait for me to say yes. He could have easily taken offence and given up.
Fast forward 25 years. I’m sitting outside on the terrace, the Café de Paris Monte-Carlo with my husband having a romantic meal. Fireworks light up the sky over the water. My husband lifts his glass of wine in a toast to me.
‘So, we’ve been married twenty-five years, what do you think? Shall we try for twenty-five more?’
Monaco.
I smile back at him. The years disappear and I see a young boy asking me to marry him, and a girl who wasn’t sure she wanted to make a commitment.
‘I’ll get back to you,’ I say as I take a sip of champagne.
He sat up in surprise, then his face cracked into a smile as he got the joke.
Well, it’s been a few more years since then and we’re still together.
Sometimes we wonder how we’re still together and at others we could never imagine being apart.
Keeping our vows has not been easy, but I think it’s worked because we don’t take each other for granted.
We question each other all the time and evaluate where our relationship is at.
We invest in fun with each other.
Laughter is part of the release of tension and also the joy of being together.
Life’s too short to be so serious all the time.
So, is it worth making a vow at a wedding these days?
Is it worth renewing our vows to each other as the years go by?
I’d say, yes. On our anniversary we’ll be in Alaska, Seattle or somewhere in Italy and, I’m sure my husband will ask,
‘Shall we do this for another 25, 30, 30 or 50 years?’
I will still give my cheeky answer, but I haven’t given up on the vow yet, even at times when it would have been easy to run away.
Because it’s not just because of the vow and sticking together no matter what—the vow is about really loving each other.
Celebrating each other.
Choosing to cheer each other on.
We don’t hang on by the tips of our fingers just because it’s the right thing to do.
In the intersection where the vow, choosing to love and the ways we’ve found to celebrate each other meet, we’ve found what we’ve needed to keep our vows.
Whoever we make promises to, whether it’s a friend, family member or colleague it’s worth making intentional vows.
Vows may seem old-fashioned or even irrelevant in this day and age, but I still believe in their power.
Make the choice to vow.
#365adventure is a book lover’s year of adventures. Adventures in travel, friendship, family, soul, heart and, of course, book stores!
