Will You Marry Me?

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This Post Secret submission made me smile.  I know, that doesn't seem like the normal response, I'm sure.  But, I smiled because it reminded me of my husband.  ;)

I can't count the number of times I've been asked the same common questions.

So, how long have you been married?

Where did you meet?

How did he propose?

Well, while it's easy to give answers to the first two questions, the third one is a little difficult to answer.  

How did he propose?  Ya know, I'm not sure that he did.  

I remember sitting in a small area with other parents during my son's gymnastics class a few months before my husband boyfriend deployed.  We were chatting--about what I don't know--and all I remember is him leaning over to me and saying well, why don't we just get married then.

PUT ON THE BREAKS!

Did I just hear him correctly?  I have him repeat himself.

Well, why don't we just get married then? 

Okay, so at least I'm not hearing things.  That's good.  I think.  

But is he serious?  

Are you serious?

Yea, I'm serious.  I mean, sure.  Why don't we just get married?

I start to laugh.  I laugh uncontrollably.  

At this time I become uncomfortably aware that I'm sitting within earshot of at least six other strangers women.  For some reason, this only makes me laugh more.

Through my own raging giggles I manage to cough out--Did you just propose?  I mean, did you REALLY just basically ask me to marry you?  At my son's gymnastics class?  Is that what's happening?  I think I've lost my mind.  

This entire interrogation is continuously cut short by my own laughter.  And it's not a mean laughter.  It's more of a shocked, happy, what the hell is going on, kinda laughter.  

Yea.  I mean, I obviously didn't mean to go into this here, but I want to marry you.  So, let's get married.  

Robert, I want to marry you too but we can't have this talk here.  Can we?  Wait, ARE we?  

I laugh some more.  We hold hands and smile, knowing that we've just given the other nosey parents something to go home and talk about.  

Later on that evening we finalized our decision in a private post-gymnastics discussion.  It was official.  We were engaged!

The next day, I nervously told my mother.  I didn't know how well it'd go over with her considering Robert and I had only been together a little over three months when we got engaged.

About two weeks later his mother and father made the drive from his home state to mine to meet me.  They brought a few rings with them for me to pick from that she thought I'd be interested in from her jewelry store.  I picked the biggest one (duh!) and Robert placed it on my finger.  

So, I guess that's the story of my proposal.  :)  

Although I sometimes look back and think that I wish he'd have proposed in some really romantic way and had planned it, I honestly don't think I'd change a thing.  Sure my proposal (if you can even call it that) wasn't romantic.  But it's ours. And honestly, I love that story.  It's us.  And I love us and everything that makes us 'us.'  

I think society puts way too much pressure on men with regard to proposals and making everything super romantic and perfect.  My favorite kinds of romance come at times where none is expected.  I think the best example of this is receiving flowers.  

I love flowers.  But don't you dare give me flowers on Valentine's Day from some expensive florist.  Instead, while you're out at the store on a random day--pick me up a small bouquet for $5 of daisies or sunflowers and surprise me with them.  That means so much more.  

So if I could tell the sender of that postcard anything, it'd be to let up on the guy.  If you love him and if you want to marry him for the right reasons, you'll look past those moments that didn't quite come in the perfect little package you'd always planned for them to.  Instead, try to appreciate how non-generic your proposal was and laugh about it.  For better or worse--it's now a part of your story.  

And ya know, I'd much rather stick with my funny, awkward proposal story and tell it until the day that I die because my husband and I have had a happy, long marriage than to trade that in for a spectacular proposal that ended in a broken engagement or divorce.  

Secret Sunday is a series of posts inspired by the weekly submissions to Post Secret.

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