Engagement

I lay on my bed in a daze and glaze downward to view the sparkling ring that is placed on my left hand's ring finger. I twirl it around with my thumb and forefinger of the other hand to view it's entirety. A hand-me-down ring, or what I tell people an "air-loom" because it sounds better. The 1.5 carot jewel sparkles in between six twinkling baguettes that lie on each side of the platinum setting. When I recieved this gorgeous piece of hardware I could barely fit it on my pudgy finger. Now it easily slides from side to side and I am amazed it still can sit on my finger. I think about getting it resized but have put it off until it can no longer stay in place, a sign that I have gotten considerably thinner. I am not thin enough yet. I will get thin so it would be a waste of money to get it resized now.

Our engagement has been nothing but the typical traditional cliche. The one in which the man slowly gets down on one knee, in the midst of glowing candlelight, and tells his lover that there is nobody else in the world that can amount to the beauty that she holds. He is the luckiest man on earth to have found her, that he is the one who thanks God everyday that he found her. That she completes him and wants nothing more but to spend the rest of his life with her. Then, finally pulling the soft covered box from the pocket of his slacks, brings it to the front of him and opens it with one hand as the box is centered directly in the palm of the other. The words "will you marry me" come from his lips softly as he holds back emotional tears because he had just poured his heart out to her. Then she, standing directly in front of him in her little dress, puts her hands to her mouth as she loudly says "YES!" He rises to the floor and they embrace and cry in each others arms.

There was no perfect moment, no fairytale story to describe the beginning scenario of our engagement. It was fourth of july, two years ago, and James and I went to see a display of fireworks in the parking lot of the Meridian Mall in Okemos. We found the perfect parking place, toward the back by the tiny and ancient movie theater. We were sitting in the back of his truck, cuddling under the open sky with a blanket over our legs, our backs pressed up against the side of the bed. The fireworks began as they were shot up over the open field across from the parking lot. I had never seen fireworks so spectacular in my life. They were straight over our heads, even some of the ashes fell onto the ground beneath us. I kept thinking to myself, in this moment of pure bliss, that this would be the perfect moment for a romantic proposal. I sat there, waiting for the fairy tale that would never come.

On the way back home, my heart sunken, James looks over to me and tells me "that would of been a good moment to propose." Funny how things work out, I thought the same thing. We decided, on the way home, that we would get married. We could just tell everybody that there was the fairy tale story. It would be fine. Until now, when I keep thinking that I should have waited. I shouldn't of settled for nothing less than my story-book ending. Is there a story-book ending like in Cinderella? I am finally realizing, in my mid-twenties, that it may not exist.