This post is a little late, but I’ve been trying to decide the best angle to approach it from, what specific facet of this major event I wanted to discuss. I’m still not sure, to be entirely honest. But let’s lay it all on the table now before I ramble myself into a hole: I’m engaged. Last weekend Randy and I went up to Bellingham to check out some potential wedding venues. Saturday, between two venues and while looking for crabs at a waterfront park, Randy hid the ring beneath one, and after flipping it over on the pretense of looking for crabs, seeing two and asking, “Why did you have me flip this rock over,” then looking once more to see the ring as he moved to his knee, I found my jaw agape.

Yes, even with all of our talk of marriage and even our move to begin planning the event, he still managed to utterly and totally surprise me. I thought that he was still looking for the diamond! I honestly have no idea what he said to me when he was on his knee. I know that I was silent and shocked for at least a minute, maybe less, maybe more (it’s honestly hard to judge, time seriously did slow way down) before I said yes. The ring on my finger and the cutesy kissing done, the calling began.

As I called close family and friends to fill them in on the news, fingering the new adornment to my finger, the weight of what we are embarking on truly began to sink in for the first time. I should have capitalized on the moment and written things down then, but I was too shocked, too overwhelmed. But, it’s how things have always been with me. I never really fully understand the gravity of things until something physical happens to bring them closer to reality and out of my theoretical understanding.

I do know that I got a little scared. Not about Randy. Not about us. But just about the commitment. Now, more than ever, I understand what a large commitment it really is, and, several days after the fact, am happy to be making it with Randy.

I don’t remember when or in what context, but one time my mom said this to me: “If you find the man you know you want to spend the rest of your life with, why wait?” At the time she said that, I was of the mindset that I wasn’t going to date until I started college and that I wasn’t going to get married until I finished school. It’s funny how life can change. If I’ve learned one thing over the last two years, it’s that life seems determined to break down and apart the things you’re most sure of. In any case, as time went on between Randy and I, particularly in the last several months, I can’t disagree with her statement.

I can’t explain beyond “I just know” why I want to spend the rest of my life with Randy. It helps that he knows me better than anyone else. It helps that he understands me and is tolerant of my neuroses. It helps that we love, respect and trust each other completely. And it helps that our communication skills are great and have improved much since we first started dating.

I realize that we are young. I realize that this worries some people, and I realize that this might make still others think less of us. But I know this: Randy and I know ourselves as individuals and as a couple well. We both know that we would survive and still be essentially who we are if something were to happen to us. We know who we are, for that matter. But, we also know and recognize that each of us augments and improves the other. We also realize that we are the only people who can truly calm each other down. We are a team. And I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that we can, and will, make it.