Just Right

 

 
As of today, I have officially been engaged for one month. And now I am not only a fiancée and a future wife, but I have a fiancée and a future wife. For so many reasons, I honestly never thought either of these would be true for me.
 
I’ve said it before, but I was not that little girl who had big wedding dreams. In fact, I didn’t have any wedding dreams at all. I wanted love, but somehow (blame it on my surroundings as a child), I never equated marriage with the best way to express love. So even when I was dating my kind, stable boy for over 10 years, I really never thought about a wedding and marriage. I always said, what would it change? Wouldn’t we just spend a lot of money on a really big party and then go home to the same life we had the day before the insanely expensive party? And since I wasn’t going to be changing my name, marriage was truly just a reason to be able to visit each other in the hospital…a somewhat morbid reason for union. So, it really never enticed me. And as quickly as the possibility came in 2011, it left in 2012, and I really thought very little of it in all honesty.
 
But then she came along and knocked all of that on its sad, hopelessly rational, little head.
 
From only moments after we discovered our love, she talked of us getting married and dreamed, out loud, of our wedding. In the beginning, while it was all so new and fresh…and raw…I was surprised and overwhelmed (in the best way) that she wanted to go down that route…again. But with our choice – our big, bold, beautiful choice – we knew that anything we had done in our past would be nothing like it would be this time. And I say that just in the very simple way that everything, truly everything, has been different since May 26, 2012.
 
I remember, that very first year, before marriage was even possible, we’d sit down and think about our wedding. It was a new exercise for me, and I mostly just asked her questions and let her face and eyes get bright and full as she answered. Which only made my face and eyes get bright and full right back. And before I knew it, she had me envisioning our day right along with her.
 
And despite the very real nature of our love being all-encompassing and everything we both always wanted, we faced hurdles, jumped through flaming hoops, and swung from the highest rafters trying to make life fit around our love. And sometimes we did a terrible job at it. And other times we got pretty close to perfect. Until finally, we got it just right.
 
But please make no mistake that just right doesn’t mean everything is moonbeams and rainbows. It means that when we fall, we get back up. When we hurt, we heal. When we unhinge, we reconnect. But no matter what, it’s always we and that means it’s always worth it. And that’s the reason that it will always be we.
 
 

 
And it turns out, people don’t get married for the expensive big party or access to the hospital room. Or at least, that’s not why the lovers get married.
 
So when she set up a beautiful beach spot on a getaway weekend she’d planned, got down on one knee, and, using my full name, asked me to marry her with a ring she had bought 3 years prior – despite my eyes being flooded with the happiest of tears, I said yes in the very next heartbeat. And just as I knew it on May 26, 2012, I knew then that we are the lucky ones.
 
And since you all know that I firmly believe that *it’s ok to change your mind*, you won’t judge me or be surprised one bit when I tell you that this previously anti-wedding, no-need-for-marriage girl, has been completely and 100% reformed. I get it, friends. I understand why, for just one day, you want to hold onto the magic a little tighter and shout it from the rooftops a little louder; so that you can spend a lifetime tending to your beautiful garden of love, keeping it tightly between your hearts.
 
Today, I find an inappropriate amount of joy when I hear her say, or I am able to say, fiancée. And despite what I am sure will be an insurmountable number of planning frustrations, I look forward to every obstacle and hidden treasure. Because with her, I know, we are always going to be just right.