It’s Finally Happening!

Our story officially started in our Senior year of highschool— but it wasnt the first time we’d met. The first time I ever remember meeting Thomas, was in middle school. It had to have been 8th grade, since he was introduced to me briefly by a mutual friend who was pushing him in a wheelchair after he shattered his ankle while skateboarding. I didn’t think much of him then, and can’t remember interacting with him after that until Sophmore year of high school. We were in Mrs. Nielson’s Global Studies class. He sat on the far left side of the room, and I was somewhere in the middle. I can still picture him, with his hair longer and curlier than I’ve ever seen it. I had apparently forgotten that I met him years earlier, because I either didn’t remember his real name or wasn’t sure if he preferred “Fluffy,” which is what everyone seemed to call him — or at least our friend Harold did. We were placed in group project together, and I will never forget the first impression he left me with. I had friends in school, people who I got along with, but he struck me as very friendly and kind. He spoke to me as if we’d been friends, like I wasn’t a random classmate. For someone like me who was often bullied, this was a big deal. I wanted to get to know him better, to be his friend. Never before had I wanted to know someone that badly, but as socially awkward as I was, I didn’t know how to go about it. Fast forward to the beginning of Senior year, and I had the opportunity to reach out to him. We hit it off immediately, becoming fast friends— and then more.

I don’t remember the exact moment I knew I was going to marry Shannon. We were high school sweethearts, after all, and in our youth we obviously thought we knew we were going to last. But that’s not always how it works. It was hard for us. We struggled to make it work sometimes and even found ourselves on separate trajectories more than once. I think its important to acknowledge those times because they were what we needed as a couple to shape what would eventually become a healthy relationship. In the back of my head I always saw it, a life with her. The road wasn’t always clear but we drove it together. We worked and struggled and cried and compromised, and finally here we are. I remember when i decided to get the ring. It was the middle of the night, maybe like 2am. I had just enough disposable income to justify the purchase, which is what stopped me for so long. With Shannon asleep, i snuck off, found the perfect ring, and made the biggest decision of my life. To make her my Wife. Then the journey of actually getting the ring in my hands started. It was a specially crafted ring, not found in a store. It had to be delivered via Fed-Ex. The single most important object in my life was now in the hands of the least competent mail carrier i know. The delivery date was set and I was luckily going to be home when it said it would arrive. Well so was Shannon. I told her that her gift was coming that if she was asked to sign for anything not to open it. When it didn’t come, I was equally relieved and frustrated. The delivery failed 3 more times. My ring was just floating around the county like pollen. I asked them to hold the package at the distribution center, and was met with affirmation that it would be there. When i arrived, shaking and sweating from nerves, the Fed-Ex representative had the nerve to make me wait. Then when my twenty minute wait was over, she told me that five minutes ago my package was placed on a truck and driven off. This isn’t the story of how i ended in prison but it very nearly was. I got back in my car, sick to my stomach, shaking, sweating, head pounding, and called off work because the ring was supposed to arrive within hours. It did not. Ask Jamie or Ayden about the emotional and physical turmoil this was bringing me. It was absurd. Eventually I requested to change the delivery spot to Walgreens in New Windsor of all places. The key to my future would now be delivered flawlessly to a convenience store/pharmacy. Even the girl at the counter could tell I was unwell, but this was it. I had to be sure it was real and asked if I could open it there, with her, in an empty Walgreens at like 8pm. Walgreens girl and I opened the package and viewed for the first time the ring that would seal my love for Shannon there. Walgreens girl cried with empathy, but I cried in relief. Now I had to pop the question in a special way. But I was stumped. That’s when Shannon herself asked if we were having anyone over for our Christmas party. That was perfect! I decided I would do a speech. I recited my speech for weeks at work on an empty bus. When the bus was full I took mental notes and edited it. It would be perfect. Then when the day came, it fell from my shaking lips nothing like the way I planned it. But in a certain way it was perfect. We were kids when we met. Nothing about our relationship had gone to plan so far, and here I was getting down on my knee asking if we could blunder through the rest of our lives together in much the same fashion, surrounded by the people we loved, hand in hand with the person we cherished most. We aren't perfect people. We never will be. We won't be perfect spouses. We won't be perfect parents. But we’ll always be perfect for each other.