Monday, February 25, 2013

If you like it then you should put a ring on it.

I love her

.
and love her.

     I have known that I want to make a life with Satu almost as long as I've known her, but desiring something, even with your whole heart does not mean that you will get your happily ever after. I sometimes feel that the things I love the most are likely to disappear for no reason other than I wanted too much. For this reason, there is a part of me that always suspects that what I have with Satu is too good to be true. Don't get me wrong, I know that she loves me. I know that she is steadfast in her love and will try and try and try; it's just that the thought of losing her is so paralyzing that there is a little part of my heart that anchors the rest of it, always pulling back from risking too much. We never really talked about getting married, whatever that means for two women in this changing world. I assumed that she knew I wanted to because it is so obvious how I feel. Everything about me is obvious. I just couldn't bring it up because I didn't want to risk losing the possibility of marriage. Then there are also the auxiliary fears:
1. What if I get her a ring she hates?
2. What if I can't afford the ring she likes?
3. What if she says yes and she doesn't like my wedding dress? Is it stupid for two women to get married in dresses? I certainly can't wear a tux. Marriage is not a statement about roles, it should be a statement about commitment. Can I wear white, or will that make me seem like a joke.
4. What if my family doesn't come?
5. What if her family doesn't come?
6. What if they all come and fight all the time?
7. What will people at work say, will I have to come out again? Should that go on facebook? Maybe I can just get rid of facebook.
8. What if the whole thing makes me have a heart attack?

     What if I come home from work one day and she shows me a ring she has found online that she is drawn toward event though it is not typically her style? As unlikely as that seemed to me, that's exactly what happened a couple of weeks ago. My heart swelled with hope and all of the fear I had felt about having the marriage talk washed out to sea. Seeing her looking at rings made the possibility that I had hoped for seem like it may actually happen. It was not a fools daydream after all.
     I knew I had to buy the ring. The stress of worrying about rejection was gone, but now it was replaced with financial worry. Even though the ring she loves was not terribly expensive, I have been putting every spare penny I have into starting a business which may either turn into a viable income when I get out of the Marine Corps, or dissolve into a very expensive fantasy. There is no way to tell.
     I had to get things in perspective. People go into debt for business, for cars, for school and for so many other things in life, and none of those things could possibly be more important than seizing this moment.
I bought the ring. When it finally arrived I was on the phone with Satu. I have no idea what we were talking about because I can only do one thing at a time, and I certainly didn't want to wait to look at the ring until we were done talking. Waiting is not one of my most practiced skills.
     For the rest of the day I carried the ring around off and on. I looked at it in different lights. I got on my knees and held the box, which felt really wrong, so I decided against that kind of thing. I woke up once in the middle of the night to retrieve the ring from the kitchen and put it by my bed. In case of emergency, I decided, I would save the ring and the dogs and let everything else burn if need be. I woke up two more times after that to look at it.
     The next day I drove up to Satu's house with the ring in my purse. Then I put in my pocket, then back in my purse. Though I had decided how not to give her the ring (not on my knees, not in public etc), I had not decided how to present it. I knew that I wouldn't be able to stop myself from giving it to her long enough to develop a romantic plan though. I was just too excited, so I was going to have to make it up on the fly.
     I told Satu I had a prezzie for her. She is good at waiting though and wanted to delay gratification for a little while. I put it in my pocket and then moved it to my bag. On the way to lunch she looked at me and said " I am ready for my prezzie now." Alas the ring was in my bag at home since I wasn't going to give it to her in public. Later that evening we cozied up on the couch together and I decided to get in some sleeping clothes. I had been so preoccupied with the ring that I didn't pack a sleeping costume. I had just put some clothes in my bag from the floor of my closet. I decided on a pair of stretchy black calf length jammies and a dingy concert  tee shirt, and once I put that on, I decided against giving Satu the ring that evening. Not only had I left my A game at home, but my B, C and D game were nowhere to be found either. I was so ugly in my sleeping costume that I was embarrassed to be alive and had to be covered up with blankets.
     At about 3 am Satu woke up to use the restroom. We were out of toilet paper which to me seems like misfortune, but to her is a symptom of her life falling apart. We had a long conversation about her dissatisfaction with work and the feeling that she should be doing more in life. I tried to assure her that we were going to make a bright and happy future together, but she still kept focusing on missed opportunity and failure. Eventually she sighed and settled down with her kindle. I went downstairs and retrieved the ring. I wanted her to know that the future was ours and I wanted her to feel as hopeful as I did about it. I stood in front of her in the world's ugliest outfit and slid the dingy green box onto her kindle screen. Then I kissed her sweet head and held her while she studied it in the light.
     I will make an effort to think more about the details of the wedding and not just make it up on the fly this time. I also feel relieved because no matter how bad my dress could be, it can't possibly be worse than the outfit I proposed in and, after all, she still said yes.


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