Here's how it happened...

The Story of Our Engagement - Part One

Jason and I moved in together in February 2007 after much thought and discussion about how this will affect and change our relationship. We were both living on our own when we first met and although we loved spending time together we also loved having time to ourselves. After many conversations, ideally, moving in would save us some money and the drives back and forth between houses but that's not why we wanted to do it. We decided to move in to further our relationship, take it to the next level, and see where it would lead us to as far as marriage and having family were concerned.

Living together turned out to be the best thing for us. We respect each other, give each other space when needed, would do anything for one another and we agree upon most everything. He is truly my best friend.

So yeah, I put it out there... I would say things like, "If you ever wanted to buy me a ring, just so you know I don't like gold." Or "I would love to just have a small wedding here in Sonoma County". Never over the top but just enough to let him know that I was thinking about it. He would usually say "Baby!" and smile.

About a month before our planned trip to New Orleans for Jazz Fest we were having dinner and I said something about marriage. He looked at me and said "Babe, let's not talk about that until after we have an assessment period." An assessment period? Okay. Here's how we planned it: 6 months after moving in (August 2007) we could talk about how things are with us, where we're at in the relationship, etc. but until then no talk about marriage. I was totally fine with that. Seriously, I started thinking that I didn't want to overwhelm him or come on too strong about the whole marriage thing even though I was being halfway playful about the whole thing.

I love to travel but I get very anxious about it. I try and act like it doesn't bother me but I must admit that I hate flying more than anything. About 2-3 weeks prior to leaving, knowing that I'm about to fly, causes my nerves to take over my body and emotions. I wish I could get rid of the brain cell that causes it because I seriously can't control it no matter what I tell myself.

I feel that things are going a million miles an hour before we leave, we have family and friends over for a BBQ, my mom and I get our nails done and have lunch, shopping etc. It's all a big blur of events leading up to our vacation. Finally the big day arrives and we leave for the airport around 6am. By now I'm so nervous and anxious that I can't talk and so the whole way down to the airport is pretty much in silence. Until of course I'm giving Jason the wrong directions to the long term parking and we end up going the opposite way on the freeway away from the airport. Things got a little tense for a moment but we got back on track, the car parked and we were shuttled over to the airport. Once we got to the airport we had about an hour before our plane was leaving and since we had already printed out our boarding passes the only thing we had to worry about was getting through security in time. Um, no.

We walk in, look up at the computer screen and out of 50 or so flights it showed that our flight, not to mention the only flight on the screen has been canceled without reason. I have to admit that at that moment I felt an extreme sense of relief (My brain was screaming YAY! No flying!).

We just stood there staring at the canceled flight like it was going to change or something until I asked one of the airline employee's walking by what we need to do and they told us that we needed to go stand in the ticket counter line. I turn around and see a line of people about a mile long, no seriously, at the end of the line that was curling in circles was another airline company, that's how far back it went. Jason is in all sorts of uproar but I ignore him and get on my cell phone with the airline while I wait in line with everyone else.

I get hold of an agent right away and I'm certain that they will be able to re-route us and things will run much smoother once we get a new itinerary. Our original route was an hour layover in Dallas and then a quick flight to New Orleans. The agent tells me that all flights were canceled due to tornadoes the night before and that morning. Ours was the last canceled flight of the day, all flights scheduled after ours got to go. So I won't pain you with the long and suffering two hours I spent on the phone with them but this is the best they could do for us:

4:30pm flight to Dallas
Stay the night in Dallas
10:30am flight to Jackson, MI
Rent a car drive 4 hours down to New Orleans

So we would be missing one paid night in New Orleans, paying for a night in Dallas, paying for the rental car, not getting in to NO until late on Thursday, etc. We were not happy.

I told Jason "Let's book this and then we can see if we can get on stand-by while we are waiting for our 4:30pm flight and hopefully we can make it to NO tonight." Jason agreed.

We print out our new boarding passes and optimistically head off to security. The line is not long and we hand our ID's and boarding passes to the TSA lady who looks at them and says "You two have to come over here for additional screening." Okay... so annoyed we stand there and wait for another TSA person to get us. We wait and wait and wait... finally another lady comes and gets us, takes our carry-ons and has us stand in another line which will take us through the metal detector and then over to the "puffer" machine. (I'm not sure what it's really called but you stand in it and little blasts of air come out at you, trying to detect explosives). While we are in line I'm watching our stuff go through the x-ray and down past other people's luggage and then just sitting there without anyone watching it. I ask one of the TSA employee's, "Uh, that's our stuff over there can you please get it, I don't want anyone to steal our stuff." TSA, "Someone will be there to get it." I look at Jason with big pissed off eyes like WTF? They were doing a terrible, horrible job not making us feel comfortable at all. We were trying to be as easy going as possible but they were making it harder on us by their attitudes.

We made it through the machines so obviously didn't have any explosives on us (can you believe it???) and were seated in front of the TSA person assigned to you while they went through every single item in your luggage. I'm super annoyed at this point and Jason is trying to talk to me but I'm not paying any attention as I'm watching the lady pull everything out of my bag. She calls me over at one point because she can't open something and I'm standing there talking to her when I hear the TSA lady checking Jason's bag exclaim "What's this?!" I turn my head and glance over to Jason's bag and I see a larger white box with a smaller gray box inside it, I turn and look at Jason who is looking at me with huge eyes, and then I turn away.

It's hard to explain what I exactly felt at that moment. I had a flood of emotions rush through my body. I felt from the top of my head this numbing sensation that ran down throughout my body and arms and then I felt paralyzed and shocked for about 5 seconds. Then I came to my senses... "Nah, that couldn't be an engagement ring... we are still on the assessment period!" But what the hell else could it be... I wasn't sure at exactly what I saw and so I decided to not do or say any thing, well partly because I was still reeling in from my shock of thinking that it was a ring. I barely remember hearing the TSA lady trying to cover up, telling Jason that her boyfriend too had cuff links and that those were nice cuff links blah blah... but I was so out of it I didn't have the ability to make any connections.

We both walk away from the security screening area feeling violated and stressed. Not knowing what to make of this situation I make my get away to the bathroom and call my mom. Now that I'm by myself I find that I'm slightly shaking and really wondering what if it’s a ring!?! And if not what is it? I’m going through all the logical different possibilities in my head.

I call mom and not knowing that I have this high-pitched, shaky voice, which she assumes is because I'm nervous about flying, I tell her about our flight situation. I don't say anything to her about the security because if it is a ring then she might know about it and I wouldn't want her to accidentally give anything away. See what my brain is having to work with now? Did I see a ring? Does Jason know I saw it? Does he think I know? If it’s not a ring am I going to then be disappointed?

When I come out of the bathroom Jason is on the phone with his brother (Is he telling him about the situation with the ring?? My brain is now a non-stop mess) I just keep quiet and we start walking down towards our gate.

Well the only thing left to do besides try and get on standby is to go to the bar. If we can't get on stand-by then we have 6 hours to hang out so we might as well make the best of it!

Here I am having a Cosmo at the bar:

And here's a picture of the Double (Only $2.00 more!!) I ordered for Jason:

We couldn't get on standby for 2 flights so we gave up trying. We just tried to make the best of the situation hanging out at the bar... we laughed and talked and actually had a lot of fun considering. As we waited at the bar I decided that it must be a ring because I couldn't think of any other possibilities. At one point Jason looked at me with his eyes as if to say "It's all ruined now" but I didn't let him break down. I just smiled normally and pretended that I didn't know. If this was going to happen then I wanted it to go according to plan and not have the little incident with the TSA ladies get in the way.

To be continued...