If one more person says "marriage"

Why is everyone in such a rush to get me out of the way?

1. I got proposed to today. It was beautiful, and there was this silence after, as he walked out, where I asked the other witnesses, "was that a proposal?" and everyone in the room said, "yes, I think it was..."

=)

2. On the same day, my boyfriend (I have to keep pointing it out, because I have to keep reminding myself I have one, odd as that sounds) came to work and brought me the most beautiful picture of us, standing in the foreground of a house neither of us can afford atm. We're on the right (when you're looking at it) and my cat and a bird are on the left.

It's beautiful.

I think he's staking out his "territory"... letting people not only know he's in my life, but also that he does, in fact, exist. Like it's a silent way of saying "this one's taken, boys."

Thing is, my coworker decides to blurt out, "just let me design your wedding." Now, you've seen him all of ten minutes, seen us together all of 5, and you wanna blurt that out? Can I go somewhere without hearing the M word, as it pertains directly to me? You have to get to know a person VERY well before you do that. You can't just jump into it; that's prolly why so many people try to jump out of it. Can you live with every nuance, every tick, every anything? For the rest of your life? Can you compromise? Can you compromise yourself, selflessly for the party you love? Do you have the ability to fall out of love, but be so committed to the other person as to stick it out because if you're just patient enough, you'll discover something new in all the 15 years you've been married that you might not have noticed before and fall in love all over again.

Can you do that? Can you want more for them than you want for yourself? Can you agree on how to raise your children? Are you complementary? Are you culturally, socially, and (if necessary) religiously harmonious? Because whatever you think is "fine, we'll work through it when we get there" is going to creep up on you, and it'll get bigger than you thought it would and you're going to get a divorce because he disciplines your children and you think "spare the rod." Now there are children involved and your lawyer (if you have one) is going to be all about making him look like he's an abusive parent and whatnot.

Divorce is not for me. Therefore, let me be sure with who I want to marry. Because I am not getting divorced. Besides, what makes you think I havent heard, "just let me design your wedding" 5 times already? Whoever and I will design our own wedding. We will have accents that are distinctly him, distinctly me, and disctinctly us. YOU will be lucky to have an invitation at all.

3. Thing is, after all this, we had the drawing for the Secret "pal," since in our overtly pc world, "secret santa" may offend. Guess who I got? You got it! The man who proposed earlier that morning! Aaah, life has such a way of sneaking up on me!

4. Later that evening, he came to see a performance and I introduced him as my friend, and not my boyfriend. I actually tried. I really did, but it just won't come out. I think to make my mouth happy, I should just not worry about it, and just say "we're together," if anyone asks. But it's surprisingly difficult to say those words, "I have a boyfriend," "he's my boyfriend," "I'm his girlfriend." It's like, cant we just know what we are? We're together. But afterwards, I realized that maybe he wanted me to introduce him as my bf. I hope he wasn't hurt that I didn't, but I think he understands. The same way that he doesn't need to introduce me as his gf to his friends. I think most of them know about us by now anyway.

Then, he did something beautiful. More on that later, maybe.

I'm definetly growing with him. I may not end up growing old with him, but for right now, for this moment, I'm growing.

And *that* is beautiful.