The Day My Life Began

I spent all of high school waiting to be out of high school so that I could start my life. I spent all of college waiting to be out of college so that I would move in with T and start my life. I spent the first year and a half living with T waiting for him to propose so that I could start my life. Do you see a pattern?

Let's back up just a smidge. My sophomore year in college my friends and I took a trip down to Florida for spring break. It wasn't Daytona or Ft. Lauderdale or anywhere near that exotic. No, one of our friends had a "Summer House" down there. Her parents said we could stay there for the week as long as we respected the neighborhood (a gated community...mucho money, etc.).

While in Florida we made a trip to the local mall. I went into the jewelry store to look at the rings. I love rings. I think I inherited it from my mother. Sapphires (hello, they are blue) are my favorite. I saw a ring. It was an oval sapphire with a trilateral cut diamond on each side with a gold band. It was breathtaking and it was ON SALE ! It was HALF OFF ! Oh my god that is my engagement ring! Bells went off in my head, my heart started thumping louder and faster and my friends all tried to convince me NOT to buy the ring. It was a mistake, it would never work out the way I had planned, etc. I bought the ring. Spent the rest of my vacation money on it and was broke the rest of the week but I had my ring!

When we got home I gave it to T and explained that this was what I wanted to be my engagement ring and I wanted him to give it back to me when he was ready. The ball was in his court. He stalled a while. Like two more years of college and then a year and a half of living together he stalled. He wasn't READY yet. The waiting just about killed me. I saw it as rejection. I thought he saw potential in me but I hadn't met whatever criteria he had in mind yet so he couldn't propose until I got there. It broke my heart every birthday, every Valentine's Day, every Christmas he didn't propose. I wanted so badly to know that he was as devoted to me as I was to him. I cried buckets for over 3 years.

I knew where the ring was. It was in a box of his stuff in our bedroom closet. When he would leave for work in the morning I would sneak in there and carefully pull it out, remembering exactly how it had been lying in the box. I would just stare at the ring, pull it out and put it on my finger. Hold my hand up to the light to see the deep blue sapphire and the sparkle of the diamonds. Then I would put it all back and cry for what I wanted and didn't have. I know this may not be true for everyone out there and I may be setting myself up with this statement but FOR ME, my longing for a child is NOTHING compared to wanting T to propose. I spent years thinking that I wasn't good enough, there must be something wrong with me, any day now he would decide this wasn't what he wanted and leave. It was heartbreaking every.day.for.three.years.

On Valentine's Day 1999 my friend S came to stay the weekend with us. I wrote in my journal that day about how much I loved T and how much I wanted to spend my life with him and what was he waiting for and why didn't he love me enough to want to marry me, etc. I cried alone in the bathroom so no one would see me.

S stayed for dinner and left around 7pm. Around 7:30 T said he had left my Valentine's card in the car and went down to get it. Then he went into the bedroom (I assumed to sign it, he likes to do things last minute) and came back out and sat next to me on the couch. He handed me the card. The front read:

We are too close not to have been lovers in another time and another place, for when I saw your face and heard your voice,I felt my life begin all over again.

I read the card, felt all warm and fuzzy and at the same time my heart was breaking because I knew yet again, he didn't ask. I thanked him for the card and kissed him, and then he got down on one knee in front of me. My eyes bugged out, I started to hyperventilate. I realized that this quick, out of control breathing would throw him off and I wasn't about to stop him now. Plus, I wanted to be able to hear the question! I held my breath. I looked at my hand and realized that I had been wearing my birthstone ring on my left hand. I whipped it off and put it on the coffee table, freeing up the ring finger which was about to get the ring...my engagement ring.

I was right in thinking that the breathing would throw him. Apparently when I STOPPED BREATHING he completely lost his train of thought. He said he had a whole speech worked out and the look on my face which he had never seen before and the fact that I WASN'T BREATHING made him stumble for words. He never told me what he had planned to say.

He said "I love you, a lot, and I want you to be mine, forever." He handed me the ring because he didn't know which finger it was supposed to go on. I got down on my knees too and hugged him and just kept saying "Thank you, thank you, thank you" and eventually I said "yes".

That was a very busy Valentine's Day. Our friends H and L got married on a cruise that very day and T's brother and his fiance broke their engagement that day. (We waited quite a while to tell him our good news.) My boss had an emergency appendectomy so the next morning when we all gathered for the monthly sales meeting I shared by good news but then he STOLE MY THUNDER since everyone was worried about him and how he was doing. I will never let him live that down, and he knows it.

That moment, when T proposed, is when my life began. We were married a full year and nine months later but waiting for the wedding was a cake walk compared to waiting for the proposal. In 2001 we celebrated Valentine's Day on our honeymoon in Ocho Rios, Jamaica. I tell you what, that is the way to go! There were something like 8 weddings at our resort that day, but we were already married and having the time of our lives. Walking around in a swimming suite with a drink in your hand 24/7 it is hard to have a bad time.

So, my life began 5 years ago and I wouldn't go back for anything. I know that wanting a baby could turn into the same sort of desperate depressive state that I was in back when I was waiting for the proposal, but I have T and that is what matters to me. Nothing matters without him. Without him I don't want the kids. So, I am glad to say that I actually am happy with my life now. I don't think I have ever said that before. We will have children someday, bio or adopted, it doesn't matter to me one bit. The important thing is that we are together and love each other completely and I finally have the confidence in his love for me that I questioned for so long.

It kind of feels like a birthday.