'THIS IS IT!'

His; A question I have answered over a hundred times and will continue to, happily for the rest of my life. I will never be embarrassed to tell people that our first contact was through a dating app. What I am more reluctant to share was the first date which was definitely nothing to write home about. A drink at the Port Jefferson local, Spycoast bar. I promise the following dates were more thoughtfully planned, however, it was at those barstools where I was able to get to know what would be the most intelligent, kind, and loving person to ever be in my life. Hours flew by, and I knew that Marta was just the girl I had been looking for. I also knew that if I wanted to win Marta's heart, I would really have to work for it. I remember coming home that night saying to myself, " I gotta get this girl on another date" Hers; Thanks to her roommate at the time, Marta was "pushed" to enter the dating scene. She was nervous as she had never tried the dating app world, but she was assured during covid times, that there was no other way to meet people. It was a good time for first. She went on exactly one date before meeting Paul. Paul appeared not once, but TWICE on her "most compatible", she did something she never thought she'd do: reach out first. The conversation was short, but to the point, enough was discussed to want to meet up and see if they would get along. To their surprise, the conversation just flowed. It all just grew from there. Funnily, when they matched they were both 25 years old, and Marta was 2 weeks from her birthday. She had her settings as the same age and above, luckily for both, it all worked out.

The planning really started in September right around when I had returned from Spain for the first time. That was when I KNEW that Marta was who I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. I had just visited her country where I had heard so much of and got to meet and spend time with close family. I could see the future I wanted Infront of me, and the family that I would hopefully soon call my own. Anyone who is familiar with a resident's schedule understands that there are very few hours spent away from the hospital. Combined with my engineering schedule, what came out was wacky sleep schedules, lots of driving back and forth, and plenty of FaceTime. But enough love to satisfy the world. Fortunate enough I had a girlfriend who would put every single one of our shifts in a shared calendar, so we knew when that next date would be. Also fortunate to have boyfriends who were trying to plan an engagement! So that September I looked into the calendar and looked for two specific things. 1. A weekend that we both had off so as to enjoy the whole thing. 2. A weekend after her parents had visited so I could ask Marta's father for his blessing. Martas parents were visiting the first week of January, and that next weekend we would be both off was the 21st, and right there I had known the date it would be. The stress of planning the actual engagement is stress that no one really prepares you for. Ring shopping aside, planning how it would actually go down is something that took me months to figure out. Marta deserved something special and I wanted to give her that. The no-brainer was to plan something around the City. Yes, it is "The City" for all you out of towners of course I'm referring to New York City. In the state that we met, where we started our forever journey, it only seemed fitting to take this first step here. Getting Marta into the city was the next step. The idea was that we were going into the city to celebrate my Grammy's surprise birthday and that I had wanted to go into the city a day earlier because we never have a full weekend off together and I wanted to take advantage! Now that explanation would have worked for 99% of other girls, but Marta insisted to know every last detail of a plan I thought was foolproof and find holes in a plan I thought was hole-proof! Trying to get everyone up to date with my recent "white lies" or an additional detail that I added to this ever-changing story was hard to keep track of, and Marta definitely kept me on my toes with some questions I just couldn't answer including "why is this party in New York City if your grandma lives in Boston? I think this is the first time I was able, to tell the truth about the whole situation by telling her "I don't know".

The day of the proposal finally arrives, and the nerves were definitely there. This day counted on several things lining up including getting Marta to agree to leave early to go to the city while still on call at the Hospital. Yes it was a long shot, and you might be asking what I was thinking and the answer is that I knew if I had made the appointment for the photographer any later than what was scheduled (3 pm) then we weren't going to have any sun for our shoot. The next worry was the weather, and I knew it would take some more crafty words to get this Spanish girl out in the cold New York January. Luckily I had some crafty words left in my tank. Marta had just gotten me a new camera for Christmas, and I knew she would never say no if I had told her all about my desire to get some shots in Central Park. As we were driving into the city, it looked like we were going to be cutting it close on time. Missing a few turns as one does in the confusing NYC traffic had me a little more stressed than usual, to say the least. Here I am hours away from proposing to the love of my life and I am stressing about getting there on time, and that a 20-minute detour was the biggest problem of my life. Marta was in the passenger seat reassuring me that there was no rush, but little did she know that we were running late for her own proposal all while I'm sitting in the driver seat thinking of how I needed to play it cooler, and worried that she's seeing this new "stressed Paul" side of me and will not want to marry me anymore... okay a slight exaggeration maybe, but I was definitely stressed. To get Marta looking "proposal ready" I had told her that we were meeting my brother in the city with some of his friends for dinner at " a really nice restaurant", yeah I ran out of crafty ideas towards the end, but I promise it still works out. SO before the dinner with my brother, I toss the idea of going to central park before since the restaurant was close to the park. It was such a cold and windy day, and right when we got out of the cab we both were thinking how cold we both were, but Marta didn't complain at all! I was nearly shaking with nervousness at this point trying to pretend that I was interested in using my camera all while I was trying to find the meeting place for the photographer. Looking back at the camera roll I took several shots of some branches and some trees that could be compared to the quality of photos you receive when you hand a 5-year-old a disposable camera. Marta was starting to catch on that something was up because I was not acting myself but I tried to pull it together for the home stretch. This photographer I had never met in person, and all I had to work with was one profile picture from her account. So here I am looking around for a familiar face and I lock eyes with someone with a backpack and who had blonde hair like the woman in the profile picture who gave me a nod, and that was enough for me. I had set up my tripod to get some shots of us and then Marta alone, and one moment Marta was looking out into the cold city, and the next she had turned around to see me ready to give my all, and spend the rest of my life with her.