Excessive

A year ago I figured I'd grow old alone but be okay with it; that I would be comfortable alone, perhaps my dream of starting a family would never come true, but the sooner I accepted that I was destined to be alone, the easier it would be to move on. For the last few years, thoughts of marriage and starting a family (ie. children) had been floating through my head, but the question always remained, "would I ever find that one person I could picture as the mother of my children?" and that also seemed like an impossible task.

When I first asked Bekki over for dinner, it was unlike myself, it wasn't something I would normally do, and I don't know why I did it. I don't cook dinner for people, I don't ask people to come over, and I especially don't put myself in a position to be hurt, so why did I do it? I've asked myself the question before, but I figure it's impossible to figure out, it happened, and everything I've got now is a result of that one choice, and that's all I need to know.

Asking her over, I had every intention of not getting in a serious comitted relationship, as I had just got out of a long relationship, and was still in the middle of figuring out where I wanted to go in life, but life - the thing I was trying to figure out - has a way of sweeping you away without much input of your own. One date turned into coming over a couple more times, to talking a lot, to coming over almost every night. It took about two months of "dating" or frequent visits I suppose, to really commit to each other as a couple, and while to anyone this is a big step, specifically for me, at that point in my life, with all of the things I had recently been through, this was a giant step, and I knew there was risk involved, but the joy, happiness, comfort and companionship that being near Bekki brought me was worth any risk, worth any pain I may eventually feel if it meant that I could call her MY girlfriend.

She was smart - like, actually intelligent - and on top of that, could keep up with my humour, and even make me crack up. Someone that truly gets my jokes, and can join me in the things that I find funny is so important to me, so important to the quality of my life because a lot of my happiness comes from my ability to laugh... laugh at myself, at each other, and at those around us. She was beautiful and cute, and I couldn't help but want to be close to her as much as possible, another thing that I hadn't experienced for a long time, just that feeling of being close to someone, to feel companionship and physical touch, to feel... loved through a touch on the arm or an arm around your waist. We talked a lot, about all things... that was one of the best things - the most promising things, as far as a relationship goes - because we were just open about everything; our fears, worries, hopes and dreams, goals for the future... we talked for hours, both in person and online, constantly texting each other, or staying up late and talking. We fell in love fast, and I while I was scared, it didn't take long for me to let her know that I loved her, and as it would have it, she wanted to tell me at the same time too.

As life does sometimes, circumstances arranged themselves in such a way as to force us to make a choice perhaps a bit earlier than most would, or earlier than either of us would normally, and we agreed up front that it was quite early on in our relationship to be talking about the possibility. As it would happen, Bekki was finishing her lease at her current apartment, and she had been spending so much time at my place (probably four to five days a week), it seemed an option for her to move in, even though it was still early in our relationship. We talked about her getting her own place, on her own, but it was hard to argue that paying full rent on her own for an apartment she wouldn't spend much time in made sense, so we quite easily decided that it made sense for her to move in. This was at the end of March, and she moved in on the 24th, so it was only about four months after we met, so things moved along quickly, which was scary, but at the same time made me feel something much better, hopeful, loved, and I was looking forward to the future.

It wasn't long after her moving in that we were off to Cape Breton together, a place where we grew closer than ever, experiencing new things together and spending an entire week together uninterrupted without the stress of work or anything getting in the way. I have to say that this is quite possiblies my happiest, purest, most awesome memory of our relationship. It's hard to describe the feeling exactly, but... I was in this far away, foreign place, completely isolated from anything I knew or was familiar with, and yet I felt completely okay, completely fine. I was with Bekki and it was the only thing that mattered. We went shopping together, and I felt like I was home, I was in her parents house and felt like I was at home. We drove around the entire coast of Cape Breton together over two days, stopped in or drove through all the little towns, slept in some hotel, in some random town, on the god damn ocean, and I felt at home, and I felt safe and it was amazing.

We grew closer and talked more of the future, about kids and family, and what we wanted, and what we wanted with each other. We kind of agreed that we'd eventually be married, and eventually start a family, but it was three-quarters serious, and no real time line was set in stone, and things are easy to talk about when they're not real. We had jokingly looked at rings back in the summer, and even got her finger sized, so I made a mental note, and started saving a big chunk of cash from every pay cheque I got from then until now. I knew that I wanted to marry her, because I could imagine her having my children, because I could imagine being with her for the rest of my life, and I had never felt that before about anyone or anything.

My original plan was to ask her to marry me on New Year's Eve, because it's a special night and I knew it would be unexpected, but it bordered on cliche and that always stuck in my mind. I had been feeling down the last few weeks... like really down, and it was hurting our ability to relax together, for various reasons. If we get in a fight, or if we argue, or have some kind of disagreement, there is always this thought in the back of my mind of, "she could get sick of me and leave me" or maybe she thinks, "he's gonna get sick of me and leave me" and my mind always goes there when I'm upset or having a tough time, and so one day, after a particularly rough day of just being completely down in the dumps, I decided... "I'm going to take that thought away." What I meant by that, is I'm going to remove "leaving" as an option. (Yes, I know divorce exists, it's the symbolism that I mean). I wanted to prove that I'd never leave, prove that my love is unconditional, and I didn't want to wait for New Year's Eve. My doubts over the cliche of doing it on that night only sealed the deal. I wanted to show her that even if I feel like shit, she is still the most important thing to me, and that I would never get sick of her, and if she felt the same, and she wanted to be around forever, she should agree to marry me.

So she left for work, and I immediately collected the money I had been saving, and called my Mom to tell her my plan, who was a bit excited, concerned and confused I think. I threw on my headphones and just walked to White Oaks Mall. My goal was People's Jewellers or whatever, but I walked right by another jewellery store on my way so I made the mistake of going in and some lady started talking to me and made me sit down. She started showing me a bunch of rings I didn't like... I finally just said thanks and that I'd just check out my other options and I'd be back, but really I just wanted to get out of there.

I walked into People's and a nice woman talked to me and asked what I was looking for, in a much more calm and supportive way than that other lady. I already had an idea of what I wanted... a solitare diamond on a fairly plain band, so she started showing me the opposite what I wanted. A bunch of those rings that have what looks like shit loads of diamonds on them but really they're just specs of diamonds, and I think those rings look ugly, tacky.. ugh, just not my style. After putting up with it for a bit, I just said, "Oh, well I think I saw a few over here I liked." and we moved over, and within about two seconds of looking I found two that caught my eye. Turns out they were the exact same ring except one was a princess cut and the other was a round cut. I chose the princess cut and that was that.

I needed to get the ring sized to Bekki's finger, which was a six, and I could've sent it away, and the lady even said, "okay, you can have your ring in probably about four to six days" and I was nervous for whatever reason but said, "actually can I just take it home right now and bring it back, because I kind of want to propose tonight." See... I get really nervous when I reveal personal information about myself I think, so that was tough for me to say out loud. Anyway, she said that was fine, rang me through and gave me the ring and I cabbed home so I didn't have to take a diamond ring on to the london public transit system.

Once home, I only had a couple hours to figure out how I was going to propose. I knew that if I just tried to wing it, I would fumble over my words and look retarded, so I started writing a big letter, but not a letter to just hand her, but just sort of a ... speech, to read off of, so that I didn't sound quite so stupid. It was three pages long, and the first half was sort of an apology for any stress or unhappiness I had ever caused her, and then I transitioned into more wanting to commit to a life together, and at the end, said I wanted her to be my wife, and would she marry me, at which point I just reached under the blanket and brought out the ring, which she liked (to say the least). She said yes right away, and was really happy.

So... that's how that happened. We're now engaged to be married, both very happy, and in the very early stages of planning what we want our wedding to be like. I'm both nervous for the event (cause you know... people, parties...) but also excited for the future. Very excited for the future.

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