Sitting on a ferry…

image from nctransportationanswers.org

Tonight, we are headed out to AMP’s parents house for the weekend.  It is a trip we make three, maybe four, times a year.  The first time I went to meet AMP’s family was around this time five years ago. 

AMP and I had been together for a while, officially starting to date and become a couple in September.  When the holidays rolled around, AMP asked if I’d be willing to go and spend a weekend at his parents, to give them a chance to meet me.  Of course, AMP being AMP, he didn’t tell his mother he was planning on surprising his mom, instead of telling her that he was bringing home his girlfriend and her brother and her cousin.

Thankfully, someone, I think one of his sisters, convinced him to tell her that he did in fact have a girlfriend, and that is whom he was bringing home.  This was significant, because at 27, he had never brought a girl home to meet his mother.

It was a great, if slightly nerve-wracking trip. 

But, what do I remember most about it?

The trip home, when I finally realized that I was head-over-heels in love with him. 

In the beginning, our relationship was a little rocky – AMP was different from the boys I was used to – and I think I was different from the girls he knew as well.  We had our ups and downs – but we decided to try and make it work.  My parents weren’t very big fans of his either (thankfully, that has changed a bit!), and it made me anxious and stressed a lot of the time.  I wasn’t sure where the relationship was going to go, but I did care about him a lot.

But, sitting on a ferry, watching AMP read a book, I knew – I was in love.  This was the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.  He was the person I wanted to grow old with – to live life with.

I waited.  Two months later, he told me he loved me, and I felt free to say the words as well.

A year later, he proposed.

We were married 11 months after he proposed – and in 2 months we celebrate our 3^rd anniversary – the anniversary of the day my best friend became my husband.

And tonight, while we sit on a ferry to travel to visit his family, I will watch my husband read, and be struck by how much I love him – and it’ll take my breath away.  Again.

Beginning of the End

Her gaze followed him as he wandered aimlessly around the room.  His eyes slid over her, not even acknowleding her presence.  She wasn’t surprised.  She fliched as memories assailed her: their first kiss, the late nights on the beach sharing secrets and hopes and dreams.  A mere three months later, reduced to strangers avoiding glances across a crowded room.

Her face flushed as he suddenly caught her staring.  She looked away immediately, grabbed her drink and ran.  She knew she shouldn’t have come.  The risk of seeing him was too great.

Across the room, he stared at the retreating back of the girl he loved, spun on his heel and headed towards the bar.

Outside, she sagged against the wall, and thought back to that night, that night where everything ended.

They’d been dating for three months, and that night he’d seemed especially nervous.  He took her down to their favorite spot, looked her in the eyes, and said he loved her, he couldn’t live without her.  Sinking to one knee, he uttered the four words every girl dreams of hearing…

“Will you marry me?”

Her answer had been no.

His mouth dropped open in shock.  The ring dropped from his listless fingers, the diamond glittering in the moonlight.

She hurriedly back-tracked.  She tried to explain that she loved him, she just needed more time. She didn’t want to rush into anything before they were ready, that three months wasn’t enough time.  She went on and on for about five minutes, panic setting in, and then she just stopped, looked up into his tear-filled eyes and begged him to understand.

He stood.  “Oh, I understand,” he said and walked away.

Her desperate calls were unanswered, her letters sent back unopened… For weeks she tried to reach him, and he shut her out from his life completely.

She stayed crouched against the wall, crying into her drink.  Maybe she should have said yes, she thought, for the millionth time.

Ten beers later, he looked into the eyes of another brown-eyed brunette, her face a blur.

“You should have said yes,” he whispered and he fell to the floor unconscious.

The Un-virtuousness of Patience

These days the hours and minutes are no longer slow.  They don’t crawl by.  They rush past me with no warning.  A day disappears in the blink of an eye, as do weeks and even years.  I didn’t think I was old enough for years to rush by.  But, today is two years, two months and eighteen days since our wedding day.

I thought I was going to go crazy waiting.  Once you proposed, I just wanted to be married.  Who am I kidding?  I wanted to be married before you proposed, but I’ve never been good at waiting.

I love thinking about the day you proposed.  You were dropping hints and then confuse me by saying the opposite.  By the time we laid on the blanket in the park, I definitely did not think you were going to propose that day.  But, I was determined to not let it bother me.  After all, I knew you loved me, and it was only a matter of time.  I’m always working on that darned patience.

We were out celebrating our year-and-a-half anniversary.  Your present was late coming in the mail, so we were celebrating late.  We lay reading for a little while, and then you ran back to the car and got the presents.  You hadn’t let me near the trunk all day.  You had received your presents a few weeks earlier, so it was all about me that day.  I felt guilty that I had nothing new for you, but you brushed my guilt aside.

When you came back to me, you had a basket full of presents.  I teased you for going over the $20 cap – but there were presents galore – a Happy Feet DVD because of my penguin obsession, various other penguin memorabilia, a box of chocolates and a book.  Not just any book.  A book of poems I’d been wanting for ages – the poems of Sara Teasdale.  I was floored.  Floored that you remembered such an obscure fact.

You told me to open it.  I did.  On the first page you wrote:
”I love you more than…” and on each subsequent page was a new thing you loved me more than.  I don’t remember them all, but there was “I love you more than Italians love gelato,” “I love you more than you love penguins,” and on and on.  I was touched by the originality – though I was a little upset about the writing all over the book I’d desperately wanted, but I forgave you.  Of course I did.  How can you not forgive a person who found pages of ways of telling you how much he loves you?  I kept flipping, till I reached a page in the center of the book.  A square was cut out and in it laid a ring, a citrine ring.  And above it, the words, “Will you marry me?”

I cannot describe how I felt.  Happy, ecstatic – those words don’t even begin to describe my joy.  I said yes.  Of course I did.  There was never any other answer.  I laughed at the citrine ring – teased you about not proposing with a ring made of melted down pennies like you had said months and months before.  I smiled when you pointed out the chocolates – how there was five unwrapped ones and one in the center, wrapped, a chocolate with macadamia nuts that you are allergic to.  You said it was for if I’d said no.  Again, that was never an option.

I was bubbling over with joy.  We decided to go for dinner at the restaurant nearby, the one we’d gone to on our first anniversary.  After that we’d go tell my parents the news.  We walked to the car, to put the presents away.  Finally I was allowed near the trunk.  You told me you had one last present.  You pulled out a Build-a-Bear penguin, Mumble, and handed it to me.  Around his neck was a chain, and on it my diamond ring.

That day was worth waiting for.

We were married 11 months and 1 day later.

Again, it was a test of my non-existent patience.  I did not enjoy wedding planning.  I did not enjoy the long days and weeks and months.  But, once again, that day was worth waiting for.

It’s been three years, one month and nineteen days since the day you proposed.  I love you more now than I did then.  You are my best friend – the only person I could ever imagine spending my life with.  Thank you for your love, for everything you have done and continue to do for me.

And thank you for teaching me that some things are worth the wait.

- Inspired by prompt #2 – Something worth waiting for at this week’s Writing Workshop by www.sleepisfortheweak.org.uk

the little brother

J and I have always been close.  Sure, we fight.  We don’t always agree.  But we’re close.  He looks up to me as big sister and he tries to take on the role of big brother/protector, although he is 3 years younger than me.  Throughout the changes growing up brought, we’ve always gone to each other first (or second – depending on circumstances) when we needed advice, or just to vent.

Now, more often than not, J is second, or third in line.  A is always first, but sometimes it’s easier to talk to my cousin Principessa* than to J.  After all she’s married, around my age, and is a girl.  But that doesn’t change how close J and I are. 

Which is why, when he was planning his proposal to his girlfriend S last weekend, he relied on me. 

Perhaps it is a bit unconventional to have people around when you are proposing.  When A and I got engaged, we were alone.  But my brother had a plan – and in order to surprise her, he needed help.  And, he asked me – his big sister.

So, after two days of phone calls every 15 minutes, it was arranged.  A and I would pick up S on the pretense of going to play tennis at an indoor court.  We were to be meeting J there at 8:30.  When we arrived, J was standing at the top of the stairs.  The tennis courts were in the lower section behind glass, visible from the entrance.  He pulled her close, and brought her to the glass, raised the blinds, and she saw this:
And she said yes!

 And, so my little brother is getting married this year.  They are planning to be married in October. 

And sometimes I worry that J and S are too young – but I wish them all the happiness in the world.  And I hope that despite all the changes life brings, we’ll always be close and always talk and always be there for each other.

- Inspired by prompt #4 at this week’s Writing Workshop by Sleep is for the Weak.