Before him, I had never considered marriage. I thought it was a sham, for shmucks and fools. A silly peace of paper which meant nothing. After all, love doesn’t need to be legal and I hadn’t ever known any marriage which I could consider healthy or inspiring. Everyone in my family who had ever been married had also been divorced. (Most also remarried as well). My mother’s first marriage was full of verbal abuse and other strife. It was no wonder I had no faith in marriage. But he would change all that.

I don’t know when exactly but I know, after some time, I decided I wanted to be with him for a good, long while. Eventually, that turned to the thought of marriage. Before we had the chance to meet, he would occasionally question me “Marry me?” “Of course” I would respond and I meant it even if our conversation wasn’t serious. I would smile at the thought at being his wife. If you had told me 6 years ago that this would be the case, I wouldn’t have been able to imagine this change. I would have vehemently denied it and probably insulted you with a flurry of profanity which would have left you flabbergasted.

And so, we met and hit things off. We enjoyed each others’ company until a night where a conversation with my room mate turned sour. We had been talking about plans which had never come to fruition and she said “Of course, you never expected that to happen” as though everyone else in the world had seen the future and I was being naive. I flew off the handle, marched out of the room and locked myself into the bedroom to cry.

I was angry at her for saying such things. I feared they were true. I worried I would never to amount to anything. I knew things weren’t going the way I had planned. I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life, what I was doing or how I was going to do anything.

Amidst all this, he knew. He knew he wanted to make me his wife so we could be together for the rest of our lives. He consoled me and hugged me and tried to convince me I wasn’t a failure. He told me he loved me and then he did something I never saw coming: he proposed.

I did what I knew I would do for months: I said yes.

Out of defeat and disappointment came new hope and happiness. Of course, he would decide that his proposal was not good enough – the two of us lying in bed, in the dark, me crying. So he turned on the light, got dressed and knelt down on one knee to do it again, the “right” way. But it wasn’t the second proposal which meant the world to me; he had already changed my life. It was the first proposal which had weight, the first proposal which I still remember.

He left soon after and I began searching for rings online. Was I crazy? I had accepted a proposal from a guy I had known, in the flesh, less than a month. But it felt right and I soon picked out a very unique ring; a pink stone with diamond accents. It was set in silver which I loved. Silver has such a history to it and most jewelry is not made of silver anymore.

He began basic training with the military almost immediately after leaving me. He continued to train after it finished and he planned to see me once more before making his way overseas, where he would be stationed for 2 years. Somewhere in the mix, he suggested we get married while he was there. I was against the idea; a part of me wanted that fairy tale wedding. I wanted to be the princess but I knew that would take time to plan and money. He persisted; I resisted.

And then something funny happened. I became giddy at the thought of being his wife and afraid of the time we would have to spend apart while he served. I began to come around to the idea of getting married during his next visit and, eventually, I told him we should. By that time, he had come around to my original way of thinking – isn’t that just how it goes?

We went back and forth for a couple months and then he was visited. I was set in being married and he had become terrified of the idea. But I was convincing, as always, and we intended to head down to the courthouse and have it done on a Friday. There were some kinks in our plan and we only wound up getting our license that day. We scheduled a time for the ceremony the Monday after and returned with 2 friends of mine in tow, a knot in his stomach. For the life of me, I cannot remember how it went.

I remember waiting, however. I remember meeting the judge, walking into the court room. I remember my friends standing back. I remember we were dressed casual, too casual. I remember the judge asking if we had rings to exchange: we didn’t. I remember my friend took a picture on her phone, the only picture of our “wedding,” which neither of us have ever seen. I remember stumbling over my vows because my mouth was not working right.

I remember leaning in for a kiss and tight hug as we were pronounced husband and wife. I remember his whispering “I love you” into my ear and that, as the saying goes, is all she wrote.

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