Four Years

Yesterday was a four-year anniversary for the Dude and I. It was a pretty good day. I had to work, but that was normal. He came home with flowers for the first time. I love getting flowers. He once tried to get me a bouquet back in 2007 when he was visiting me (we lived in different cities until 2008). I was walking home from work (an hour's journey at the time), stopped to get a chocolate bar, ate it on a bench and saw him walk past.

So I decided to follow him for kicks. Then I sped up quietly. Then I scared the bejesus out of him, grabbing him from behind and screaming. The jig was up and we went back to my place, flower free. Somehow didn't seem quite so romantic to buy some after that. So getting the flowers yesterday was lovely.

We went out to dinner at this nice Italian place in the Art & Design District. But before we got there something unusual happened at Bathurst Station. As we were going up the escalator, this meth addict lady ahead of me blacked out. And then she fell back on me, nearly taking me down with her. So I caught her, got her upright and gave her a guiding shove off the moving stairs.

She was grateful, high and completely disoriented. I was shaking like a leaf. I normally don't have my wits about me, so frankly it's pretty lucky I was alert at the moment. I mean, can you imaging taking a spill down the up escalator? Hell, you'd never run out of stairs to tumble down. What a nightmare. Surprisingly, I forgot about it over dinner. In Toronto, weird and alarming shit happens all the time and you move on pretty fast.

After our dinner we head out to McPal's and his boyfriend's new coach house. My God, what a charming little place. I had house envy, but the good kind where you're happy about it. And the cool thing is that now we're neighbours-ish, like a 20-30 min walk away. Yay!

So we left and went for a bit of a walk and when we passed through a park, my feet needed rest so we parked ourselves on a bench. And the Dude proposed to me. So now we're engaged. Wild, eh?

Awhile back when we talked about rings, originally I wanted a sapphire. But increasingly, I wanted to wear my mother's/grandmother's ring which has been sitting in my jewellery box for years. It didn't fit and being a diamond cluster, it was too fancy for casual wear. And the fact I never had a reason to resize it, never mind wear it, always kind of bummed me out. It's so sentimental to me and incredibly beautiful and I could never wear it.

So I retracted my sapphire request and gave the Dude my ring, and asked that when he was ready to have it resized because that was the one I wanted. He asked if he could engrave it and I said yes. It's not the typical procedure, but everything about it felt right. And as a bonus, it was economical, so we can have more money to put towards our wedding.

So there we were on the park bench and within seconds things had suddenly changed while staying the same. Made me realize that we've been engaged for a year or so already, only now we were ready to plan and we could tell people about it. And it's not like it was a secret. We talked about it to whoever asked. We talked about it together a lot, researched a few venues, and we've been planning our marriage, financial and child-rearing plans for a long time. But, I don't know, it was still on the backburner. The Dude's been building up his business and life has been presenting us with some other priorities.

So odd that we're now ready to get this show on the road. Part of me already feels married to him whereas the practical and logical side of me always reminded me I was not. I've contacted a bulk of my friends, and some family out West and now we're going to our hometown to spend Thanksgiving with my family. They'll ask all kinds of questions, as is their way. I enjoy the inquisitiveness; I'm used to it and I know it means they care. The Dude is less accustomed to it, so good luck to him. Heh.

I took a random lame laptop photo of the ring for those who are curious:

Yeah, you can't really see anything.
It looks like a flower, I swear.

And now the saving, planning and preparations begin. Basically, to formalize what we've been doing for years now and make it official in front of loved ones. It's funny. I'm happy about it in a calm way. I'm not energetic and excited. But that's the way the Dude makes me feel in general. Calm and content, not nervous or jittery. I guess it just feels natural. And that's a pleasant feeling.