The moment.

Today I am back at work after a day & a half snow/sick time off. I don't feel great, but I've felt worse. I'm mostly feeling a little loopy from taking both a dayquil type medicine and cough/congestion syrup. I've also been taking that Zicam homeopathic stuff like it's candy. It's supposed to shorten the length and lessen the severity of your cold if you start taking it at the first sign you're coming down with something. I have to say, I think it does work, because this cold doesn't seem as bad as what I usually get at least once or twice a year. 

Anyway, since I really must get on top of some work here (even though I did bring some home and get it done), I'm going to post the story of our proposal today, as told to my sorority sisters in our yearly pledge class email update. I loved reading all of their updates, especially because many of them also got engaged in the last year. As we always say... KO's really ARE the girls you marry! I really miss those awesome girls! ♥  So I was inspired to remember as much as I could from that amazing day, and write it down. Because, as I'll explain later, at the time I was in such shock, so overwhelmed, and excited, most of it just went right over my head. Surprisingly, a lot of the details have come back to me over time, but at first when people asked me about it, all I could remember were the major things. Where we were. He got on his knee. He gave me a ring. Those are pretty much the most important things - but here's a little more of the good stuff.

On Christmas morning, I woke up relatively early & tired from a busy holiday season at the jewelry store - relieved but a little bummed, as I always am, that it was all over. As usual, I went way overboard on Christmas presents for Johnny... While he got me exactly what I asked for - but not the MAJOR thing I'd been asking for for quite some time. I was working really hard at not being disappointed - because I really was not expecting a proposal (even though about a million people had asked me if it was happening). We had been talking about marriage for a long time, but were in agreement that it's wasn't quite the right time yet and it was probably cheesy to propose on Christmas anyway. But, after a month of 60+ hour weeks on my feet I was a little burnt out and emotional, and had had the tiniest hope maybe it would happen after all. 
 

Seeing my disappointment, he immediately switched gears to, "we've got to go meet my dad for coffee." That was when things got weird. First of all, it was still relatively early. But he told me his dad really didn't want to be alone on Christmas morning, which was perfectly understandable. Second, I thought his dad had said breakfast - and at his house, but Johnny told me we were meeting him for coffee... at some place in Ogunquit. This really did not seem logical at all. Me being me, I started peppering him with questions because none of it made sense. He's a pretty terrible liar, but convinced me to shut up and go get dressed. At this point I started getting a bit excited, but was still trying not to get my hopes up. During the 20 minute drive, I continued being a pain in the butt with questions like why was this place open before 10AM on Christmas day and why did his dad want to meet in Ogunquit, not Portsmouth which would have been closer to his house. When he refused to answer these questions (or gave unsatisfactory answers) I reverted to typical annoying girlfriend behavior - wondering aloud what we should name our children and such. Looking back, I feel a little bad for giving him such a hard time when he was probably all nerves! (I didn't think much of it at the time, but I had put a nip of whiskey in Johnny's stocking. When he opened it (mind you at roughly 8 in the morning), he immediately dumped the entire thing into his coffee. This is very atypical behavior for a guy who gives me a hard time about putting Bailey's in my coffee on the weekends, but I now know why he did that!)

He of course drove right past the place we were supposedly going. When I mentioned this, he went "oh crap!" and whipped the truck back around, but then turned off the road.... at this point my heart was pounding because I figured it really was happening, and the rest is kind of a blur. We got out of the truck near the Marginal Way, a beautiful path/hike along the ocean we'd often ridden to on his motorcycle when we were first dating. We went there a lot and there was one time we went at night, sat on this bench, looking at the stars & talking about the future. It was right before I was going to move out to California for about 7 months, we would be apart, and we weren't sure how the relationship was going to work out. He had said something that night along the lines of how someday we'd be looking back and remember that night, that summer and everything...... Well three years later, he led me to that same bench and got down on his knee in the snow. I immediately started crying and shaking (it was pretty cold after all!) and he said all those lovely things that are said in a proposal, about not being able to imagine his life with anyone else, being excited for our future, and taking care of me and our family someday. He pulled out a very old jewelry box I had never seen before and asked me to do him the honor of being his wife and taking his grandmother's engagement ring (which I knew nothing about until that moment). I think I nodded, and he said well, let's get this thing on you and get out of the cold! 

Someone told me about six months ago, that when about to be proposed to, she and many people she knew said they had essentially blacked out, and not really taken in what was said or what was happening. That is EXACTLY what happened to me! I was nervous as we walked to the bench. I was completely and totally freaked out, a feeling I hadn't expected to feel right before being asked to marry the man I love. I remember feeling kind of dizzy and overwhelmed - just in complete and total shock. I suddenly felt super awkward, despite being with the person who probably knows me best in this world! I didn't know what to do with myself, but remember making a silly comment about the bench having snow & ice on it and not being able to sit down. When I turned to find him on his knee, I was speechless. Literally. (which is a great feat for me!) The crazy thing was how well he had pulled it off - he's lucky I'm so oblivious - the surprise, the timing, the ring. It was exactly what I wanted, but what I thought would never be possible given my career and involvement at the store, the fact that I had essentially told him exactly what I wanted, and the fact that I'd been waiting and hoping for it so long - I was afraid I'd taken all the romance out of it. He always said, though, that he would do it "in his own way" ... and that is exactly what he did. I could not have planned a more perfect proposal, a more perfect next step in our love story. With my love of jewelry, art history, and all things antique/vintage, as well as sentimental, I could never have dreamed up a more perfect engagement ring for me. This is how it was always meant to be. 

The surprise, the shock, and then the clarity I felt when it was all said and done, was greater than I ever could have imagined. I don't think it really hit me until about 10 minutes into the drive home, when I finally stopped crying and let in sink in... "We're engaged! We're getting married!" He must have thought I was pretty funny. "Well, yeah!" he said - not realizing how out of it - and over the moon - I was. We started making calls to our family. I burst into tears again as soon as I got my parents on the phone. Every call I heard him make - with his opening line of "She said yes!" - it became more real, and I became more giddy. I did have to keep reminding him (as I will forever now) that I never actually said yes - I just nodded. It's kind of how it's always been with us. He says something, or gives me that look, and I just go with it. I could let him drag me, kicking and screaming, or I could just let him win now. I know in the end, that I love him too much to ever really think twice. And I think he knows that too.