oceantheorem | How Jim Proposed

Typed up nearly verbatim from my paper journal...

Monday, 25 April, 2011
Holy. Crap.
I am engaged.
I guess I should back up and write about the whole weekend.
Friday I picked Jim up in Lansing. We went to gaming at Jeff's and had a really pleasant evening.
Saturday Jim took me to the Toledo Zoo so I could see the elephants. It was a gorgeous day - really the first nice one we've had this spring. At one point I made him sit down on a concrete bench thing, and I laid down next to him and put my head in his lap and just drank in the sunshine. It was So. Nice.
We spent some time in the reptile house, and I lingered by the elephants for a while, but we ended up not really being at the zoo very long. On the way out, Jim bought me a stuffed giraffe, which I've been pestering him for two years to do. (It's adorable, by the way, and now sits by my computer.)
We went straight from the zoo to Jim's parents' house for Easter dinner. It was a smallish gathering - me, Jim, his parents, his brother and sister, his sister's fiance, and his cousin's soon-to-be-ex-husband (long story, but the family has decided to "keep" him, even though the cousin isn't).
Anyway, dinner was really nice. It was homey and comfortable and warm.
Sunday, Easter, was a nice quiet day for us. I don't think Jim even realized it was Easter (we don't really do the holiday thing, particularly for the religiousy ones). We slept in, had an easy lunch, watched some TV, and cuddled a little. We went in search of a Kindle for Jim, but the Best Buy was closed, so we stopped by Barnes & Noble and I lectured Jim on how he should give fantasy novels another chance.
Back at the apartment, I had just started up Minecraft when Jim picked up his car keys and said he was going outside for a few minutes. My reply was a slightly confused "Umm, okay." And then I went back to playing Minecraft.
About 20 minutes later, I got an IM on my phone, from Jim, asking what I was up to. When I replied, "mining" he sent back, "Come find me."
After a little back-and-forth, throughout which I mostly tried to be difficult, I got in my car and drove to the nature preserve two miles from our apartment. At this point I was honestly a little annoyed. He'd wanted to go for a walk earlier in the day and I had refused - was he trying to force me into walking with him?
I had expected to have to wander the paths in the nature preserve for a while until I found Jim, but as I pulled up in the parking lot I could see him through the trees. And as I walked toward him, I thought I could see something green behind his back. At that point I stopped being annoyed and started being confused. What the heck was going on?

Finally I came around the first curve in the path, and Jim stepped out of the trees. He handed me what he'd been hiding behind his back - a single gorgeous red rose, wrapped in green tissue paper. My first thought was, "Wow, this is sweet, but kinda weird. Is this because I hassled him about not getting me flowers for Valentine's Day?"

He said, "The last two years have been the happiest of my life." I thought, "Awww, sweet."

Then he dropped to one knee and pulled out the ring, and the whole world kind of crashed through my head as I tried to grasp what was going on. I'm fairly sure he said, "Will you marry me?" and obviously I said yes, but all I really remember is throwing my arms around him and hugging him.

Within two hours, the cat had eaten the rose.

(this is me-now again, not me-journal)

Over the next week or so I went through a pretty crazy emotional rollercoaster. I told my friends, I told my parents, I told my coworkers. My coworkers were the only ones I got to tell in person, which was a little sad (why are all my closest friends online??). I got used to wearing a HUUUUGE piece of gorgeous jewelry on my left hand. My ring finger developed a sore and healed again. I began envisioning the perfect outdoor Santa Cruz redwoods wedding, picked colors, picked a location, picked a date, discarded the date, discarded the location, and decided again I really do like the colors. It's amazing what the female brain does with the sudden onset of "impending wedding". The last two weeks have made me immensely grateful for Jim's influence on me - he has this ability to take my emotions and just let them roll over him until I'm calm and sane and things make sense again. He wrote a rough draft of our vows and let me start a spreadsheet to manage our guests (once I had a spreadsheet, everything seemed better).

We told Jim's parents about the engagement in person, a week later, at another Saturday dinner. Telling Donna in person was so far, by far, the most fun part of telling anyone. She actually squee'ed and I think she might have jumped up and down a little. It was awesome.

My mom also approves, and told me she thinks Jim is a great guy and a good match for me. My dad called Jim and didn't give him too much grief about not asking for my hand, which, from my dad, is a pretty glowing welcome.

I'm happy. :-)