Magic Backstage

It is now 132 days that we've been married (says the countdown app on my phone). It's crazy to believe that this time last year we were in the midst of planning our wedding, and now we're already over 4 months in. It's crazy. And wonderful. Life is fabulous.

This morning I received an email from TheKnot.com, asking for our engagement story and ring details. "Cool!" I thought. "Maybe I can use it for a blog post later after I tell TheKnot all about it!" Turns out, they didn't want me to tell them our proposal story in my own words, they just wanted me to fill out a survey...which I did anyway because it entered me in a contest for a $200 gift card. But it totally got me thinking that I should blog about our proposal story because it's just so...us. And I've been meaning for a while to update the ol' blog. So, for all of you out there in the blogosphere, this is the engagement story of Matt and Adele.

For those who unfamiliar with our story, it's very much a chick flick formula: boy and girl meet, boy likes girl, girl's been hurt so she hesitates returning boy's affections, boy and girl are good friends, boy and girl fall in love. Seriously, if Nora Ephron were still alive, I'm sure she'd want the rights to our story (may she rest in peace). Since we were such good friends for so long, both of us knew that the relationship would eventually lead to marriage once we got together. As scary as it was to realize, it was after the first month that we both began thinking about the "M word".

As much as we knew that we were in it for the long haul, we weren't rushing into an engagement. Even with the holidays coming and the questions coming in of "Is he giving you a ring for Christmas??" we both focused on being committed to each other, and doing things when it was right for us.

So imagine my surprise when I had a sparkly ring on my finger that December 31st.

 Both of us were working that New Year's Eve, as was the norm for those in the theme park business. Matt finished up a couple of hours before I did, so he came to hang out with me until my shift was done, then we both planned to head up to my mom's to ring in the new year with my siblings, niece and nephew. I noticed that Matt was quieter than usual as he sat with me that evening. Usually, neither of us can stop laughing or talking with each other when we're together, but he seemed unusually pensive. When I asked if everything was ok, he replied, "Yeah, I'm just thinking..." Little did I know what he was thinking about!

When my shift was finally over, we headed to where our cars were parked backstage at the park. Matt said that he wanted to swing by one of the park's theaters where he was scheduled to work the next day to check something out, so we made a quick detour. He disappeared inside for a moment, while I stayed outside. A few minutes later, he joined me. It was so quiet outside in the backstage area. There were no other performers, no techs, no other workers, just the two of us. "I didn't really need to check anything, I just wanted an excuse to come over here." he said. And with that, he dropped to one knee. "Will you marry me, baby?" he asked quietly.

Actually it was more like, Him: "Will you marry m-"
Me: "Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!!!!!"
He barely got the whole phrase out, when I'd accepted.

I was shaking, giddy, not knowing whether to cry or laugh. He opened up the ring box, and the most perfect, dainty, vintage engagement ring sparkled in the street lamps and the light mist that began to fall. We hugged and kissed and kissed, and then the world just started spinning for both of us as we realized "HOLY--....WE'RE ENGAGED!!!"

As we walked to our cars, passing other workers leaving for the night, I marveled at how Matt and I just had a momentous event occur - yet no one could tell just by looking at us that we'd just had a life-changing fifteen minutes.

Showing the ring to my family and friends, I thought back to the "Wedding notebook" I'd made during my early teen years - full of ideas about dresses, flowers, reception venues, music, and rings - and nothing in it came close to the ring that Matt had given me. The ring he gave me belonged to his grandmother. It's nothing that I ever thought of for myself, but I love it so much - it's PERFECT for me. Just like my guy. It has now been over a year since he gave the ring to me, and not counting the week that it took to get resized, I haven't been without my engagement ring. I still find myself admiring it often, especially in certain lighting or the Florida sunshine. It's not like the ring pictures I cut out for my wedding book when I was fourteen, but really, how crazy is that? To think that at FOURTEEN someone would know the kind of engagement ring they'd want someday. Maybe there are some people that know at a very young age, and more power to them. There's nothing wrong with making plans and having dreams for the future, but for me, clinging rigidly to those plans often got me so far from the dreams that I had and wanted so desperately to come true.

Matt was nothing like I had ever expected the man I would fall in love with to be. Yet he was everything - and more - than I'd ever dreamed of. He's my proof that life has amazing things in store for you, things greater than your dreams. But narrowly focusing on old dreams, or ones that don't quite fit anymore, or dreams that you think you "should" have (because that's what others have told you that you should want) can lead you to overlook or completely miss those amazing things that life has to offer. That nearly happened to me, but I am forever grateful that I didn't miss out on life's greatest gem.