The Anniversary

Brad and I met June 11th, 2000 at the icecream parlor at Disneyland. This is a story into itself that I will have to tell some other day. We went on our first date one week later on June 18th and well we have been together ever since. I had always told Brad not to propose until he was ready because once he did we were setting a date and it would be all systems go on the wedding. So I waited, and waited, and waited. Then all our friends started getting married and I hoped Brad would get a hint, but I still waited. Then in August 2004 our close friends and my now trainer, who started dating two weeks before us got married. I began to see signs that Brad was ready to make the same plunge. He asked for our parents to meet and was very insistent on it. He came home with a premarital counseling book he had gotten from the newlyweds. He started taking more of an interest in my finances. Well lets just say there were lots of clues. I knew that Brad would buy me a ring from the family jeweler in Philadelphia and so when in November 2004 Brad went to Philly I was convinced he would come back with a ring. When he came back home I waited for him to go to work the next day I searched through his luggage. I didn't see a ring anywhere but I was still convinced he had come back with one and had hidden it somewhere. I felt to guilty to look any further so I gave up. I should tell you Brad is terrible at keeping secrets from me especially when it comes to surprises and gifts, so I really didn't think he could keep the surprise for very long. We went and spent Thanksgiving with my family and no proposal. Then Brad says to me in December, Let's go to Disneyland. Ok I was convinced he would then propose. We are at Disneyland and Brad says, let's have dinner at the Blue Bayou, which is where Brad said he would take me in order to get my number on the day we met. Brad asked for a table by the water and the mood couldn't have been better, I was sure that this was the moment, I was wrong. We left Disneyland that night and I was still not engaged. I was pissed! The next day I called my friend and cried that he was never going to propose and he was so dense he didn't even see what he had just done to me. She told me to wait it out and maybe he would propose at Christmas or at New Years. I was positive he would never propose on Christmas because Brad hates that day with a passion. So I held out hopes for New Years. It came and went with no proposal. I felt then that it had passed and there was no way that Brad had come back with a ring and had not given it to me by then. I again called my best friend and she said to wait until my birthday and see what happens, but I really needed to decide if I was ok if he never proposed. I gave it thought and I knew that I loved Brad with all my heart and if he wasn't ready I would be ok with it. So I gave up the notion of being proposed to at this juncture.

On January 15th we had a picnic scheduled with the MINI car club at Santa Anita Race Track. Brad had been really excited about this event and I thought nothing more of it. Brad's mom was going to fly in that weekend and visit her friend and they both were going to join us for the picnic. AT the last minute plans changed and Brad's mom couldn't fly out. We then had 2 extra tickets to the picnic and so I asked Brad if it was ok if I invited my brother to the event because he lives in the same town as the race track. I had no idea how glad I would later be that my brother was there to share that day with us. Word spread around the group that there was going to be a raffle with lots of prizes for the MINI's and a grand prize so big that they couldn't even tell what the prize would be. This was a normal thing at MINI events so again I didn't think that much of it. Brad had given me a ticket and told me to hold onto it. I hate holding things so I kept trying to give it back, after all if a prize was won it would be for Brad and his car anyway not for me. Brad told me to just keep the ticket. SO they said it was time for the special raffle and they started calling the numbers, OH MY GOD, THAT"S MY TICKET! So I went up to claim the prize, shocked that for the first time ever I had won something. Our friend Don was there to greet me and he said, Ok Karin, your prize is Brad. I was confused, Brad knew whet the big prize was and didn't tell me, how odd. Then I saw him coming around from behind me with a little box in his hand. I knew that this was the moment I had waited a lifetime for. I fell apart, my ears stopped working and it was an extreme effort to remain standing. The voices in my head were screaming at my ears to pay attention and not miss this. My ears flatly refused, instead they let a sound in roughly like the adults speaking in a Charlie Brown movie. Ok though my eyes were still working so I would use those. My brain screamed to them tell us when his lips stop moving. They stopped so I blurted yes. Now I was convinced that the ring wasn't going to fit, because as I said the other day I have short, fat, dumpy fingers and a standard ring size is too small. I knew if the ring didn't fit it would break my heart a little. I gingerly took the ring out of the box and begin to gently try to get it on my finger. It slipped right on, a perfect fit. Brad did so well. I spend the rest of the day on a cloud of euphoria that I have never been on before. The only thing was I couldn't reach even one person I knew that wasn't with us including my parents. Come on people answer your damn phones, engaged woman calling. Finally I reached people and crying and screaming ensued.

Now I look back upon that day a year ago and kept believe it has been a year already. Things have happened so fast. I think I can say I really never left that cloud of euphoria and I have been riding it ever since. I feel in many ways that this has been the most amazing year of my life. Through everything I knew that Brad was standing beside me holding my hand. When I lost my job I felt so low and worthless, yet it was then that Brad said in words unspoken that he believed in me and knew it would be ok. When I opened my business I was so scared I could hardly see, yet Brad was there helping me through. I feel like this year has had it's trials and tribulations but I knew for the first time, with all my heart I wasn't walking alone. There have also been so many amazing moments when I sit there and wonder what I did to deserve a life so great. I wonder if it is my life I am living and then I look over and see Brad and know that this moment is real, and we have just made a memory that we will share. I really don't know what made the difference in this year, whether or not the change in our titles from daters to betrothed, or if this year we lived to a fuller extent of ourselves. What I know for sure is that this year has brought so much joy to me that when I think of it I start to cry tears of joy. I feel as though this year has brought us to a sense of we and a future more clear.

I look forward and see that in 4 months I will be a wife and a new journey will commence. I am so unbelievably lucky that I will take on this journey with such and amazing man. I think back to the years before Brad and the hopelessness I felt. Through the college years and the roommates years dreaming of the man I would some day marry. I became convinced that the man I dreamed of simply did not exist. I thought that people had changed and a love as strong as my parents just wasn't possible in today's society. When I met Brad, I began to see the qualities I had been waiting for, but waited for the bottom to fall out. There was no way that this loving giving man, could be so smart and so my vision and not have a hideous secret or not find one in me. Each revelation I wondered, if this would be the one that would send us screaming away from each other, yet we both stayed and allowed those things to entwine us to one. I started to realize that the other shoe wasn't going to drop and that we were no longer separate but now together as a stronger version. I am now a complete version of me when I am with him. I do not hold pieces of myself back away from sight. I know that I can begin this marriage with him in confidence because he has seem all of me and is still here.

In short I suppose what I am saying is "I LOVE THIS MAN!" And to you Brad, I say, I love you, Monkey!