What a Year

This has been quite a crazy year.  I did my student teaching in the spring, I learned to drive, I graduated from college, I found a job in the real world, and I am slowly moving toward a real adult life.  I decided to move back to Flagstaff.  I decided to pursue graduate school at NAU.  I decided that I would enjoy being a librarian.  And I decided to say yes to the most important question of my life.

That's right folks -- the boyfriend finally proposed.  And I couldn't be more ecstatic.  I'm gonna steal a little from Mr. Monk and say, "Here's what happened":

He and I have been talking about marriage for a long time.  Practically from the get-go, we just knew this was right.  It wasn't so much a matter of "if," just a matter of "when".  In September, his coffeeshop got bought out by another company, and this company let their baristas keep their tips.  He decided to put all his tips away into an engagement ring fund.  About a month ago, it started getting to the point where he could think about buying one.  So I started looking, and we started talking, and it all seems like there's no mystery, right?

Wrong.  If you don't already know me, I'm going to clue you in on some things about me.  I'm very gullible.  I'm not super observant.  I don't always put two and two together immediately.  I'm the person who gets jokes last, usually.  And I am very trusting.  So when Philip said he had stayed home the day before and done household chores and taken care of his sick brother, I totally believed him.  It never occurred to me what he might actually have been doing.  So when he came over to my house the next night and my parents left to go pick up a pizza, I was completely unsuspecting.

Now here's something you need to know about my boyfriend.  He gets very excited to give things.  He can almost never wait until the actual holiday to give me presents -- he always ends up doing it early and spur of the moment.  He gets caught up in it and can't help himself.  It was the same this time.  He had thought about taking me to the library where we met and proposing in the children's section, but apparently I was being too cute and he just got too excited.  He led me upstairs on the false pretense of being cold and needing a jacket, and just when I had brought him one, he got down on one knee in the crowded hallway outside my room and proposed.

I cried a lot.  He completely blew me away.  I had no idea he was going to do it then, and he makes me so happy I just couldn't keep it all in.  I think I nodded frantically yes, yes please I want to be your wife so badly you adorable thoughtful funny man.  I know everyone says you need to be your own person, whole and complete, and I get that, and I think I am that, but the hopeless romantic in me prefers this version, from the incomparably sweet movie Imagine Me & You:

"I think you know immediately.  You know, as soon as your eyes. . .then everything that happens from then on just proves that you had been right in that first moment, when you suddenly realized you had been incomplete and now you are whole."

I had that first moment with Philip, and everything since then has been absolutely amazing.  He is everything I could ever ask for.  He is romantic and silly and level-headed and smart and funny and handy and handsome.  He treats me wonderfully and with such consideration.  I am happier with him than I've ever been before.  He opens up worlds of possibilities and empowers me to pursue my dreams. He is completely supportive.  I could go on and on about his fabulous qualities, but at the bottom line, I love him.  That's all there is to it.  :)