Take Me Off the List

Another one bites the dust

And then there were

What took you so long

I could go on and on.  This post, if it were not already obvious, is about one of the single most important days of my short life.  It's been a while since I last posted and you will soon know the reason if you don't already.

The short short version is that Annie and I are engaged.  I proposed to Annie on our year and a half anniversary, July 2.  After Annie got over the shock she said yes.

Below is a bit longer version.

I have a different (I was going to call it weird but we're all weird in our own way) aspect of my personality that I think is important to describe to you before going into much else.  It relates to the word love.  In my past relationships, I oftentimes used the word loosely.  In hindsight I never really meant it.  It became something that was expected of me (or at least I interpreted it as such) and something that I felt I needed convey to be considered normal.

Love would have to be one of the trickiest words and emotions in the English language.  I'm sure other languages deal with it better.  I think Spanish does a better job, but not much.  My sister made a revealing comment to me recently.  "Love really means different things to different people."  Obvious though it is, it had not really occurred to me.  We, myself included, have tried to create a general, end-all-be-all, definition for love that applies to everyone.  What does the question "do you love me?" really mean?  Are we using your definition or mine?  Or something from a movie?  Maybe a poem or song?  My head is spinning just thinking about it.

I do like the word though.  Chiefly because it is THE word.  No other word in the English language tends to convey such an ultimate and final emotion.  There is no other word you say after that means more.  At least that 's how I look at it.  I'm sure a poet or master wordsmith could concoct something that blows me away, brings me to tears, and has be pointing at the air uttering "that's it."  We all use it.  It's big.

I'll keep my soapbox to a bare minimum.  Telling someone you love them and then choosing not to be with that person, to me, is a contradiction.  As with nearly all I write here, I need to qualify it by saying that this is my perspective.  Again, love is different for each person.  Annie and I have different definitions of love and she'll be the first to disagree with this.  And that's ok.  It's hard not to sound like I'm judging so I'll not try to lead you down that path.

Circling around to my story, in a year and a half, I did not once tell Annie I loved her.  I cared about her and did so deeply and I constantly told her as much.  She was my best friend and companion.  We lived together.  We moved to a foreign country together.  We'd talked about marriage and kids.  This one point was tough.  I was not going to use the "l" word until I felt it.  When would that happen?  I couldn't know.  But I had to do this to be fair to myself, her, and us.

I once mentioned to her that when I told her I loved her, I'd put a ring on her finger.

I need to bring you into two stories that will help bring the full story together.

First, Annie celebrates birthday months (not days).  Her birthday is June 30.  Keep in mind that I proposed on July 2.  All month long, I'd been telling her not to open packages.  Not to even get them at the door if possible.  Getting time alone was tricky since it was out of the norm (we do most everything together) and it was suspicious (birthday month and all).  It could not be avoided though.  I forced time alone and used the birthday month as the excuse.  I ordered stuff online and, again, used the handy explanation.  Annie's a smart and observant girl.  She naturally kept a loose track of gifts that came in and gifts that she received.  And not because she was greedy.  Far from it.  It was just natural.

Second, there was THIS ring.  THE ring.  She loved this ring.  When we first started seeing each other, she went to visit a friend in North Carolina.  She saw it then for the first time.  I'll attach a pic later.  Two white gold bands, one overlaid on top of the other, but offset a bit.  In the gaps were diamonds of various sizes.  It was unique and quite beautiful.  Even I had to admit that.  Not your typical engagement ring.  On our road trip to NY (see previous post), we stopped in NC and she took me to the store where she first saw it.  We saw it there and sized it.  Trust me, I could not get out of there fast enough.  Talk of marriage after only a little more than a year??  Sarah Hill, from Hamilton Hill Jewelry, had seen this all before.  Shortly after our visit, she sent me a simple email with all the details of the ring, including size, "just in case."

On July 2, after having returned from a romantic trip in Portugal, as she was sitting down to do some work, I asked her to come over to the couch and have a talk.  She thought something was wrong since I was serious. I then reached into my pocket, told her that there was one more gift I wanted to give her.  Her gift count had yielded a gap in her mind of one gift and this was it (and she was right).  She folded open the cloth covering a foam box and saw the very familiar ring.  With eyes wide open, she asked what this ring meant.  Was it a birthday gift or something else.

I told her I loved her and I slipped the ring on her finger.