You're not the only one.
The Short & Sweet
Getting engaged after fourteen years together is supposed to feel like an arrival. I'm still figuring out why it feels more like a beginning.
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I have loved penguins my entire life 🐧. They are, without question, the greatest animal on this planet. Demetris has known this since before we were even dating. We were close friends first, and right before holiday break in high school, he showed up with a giant stuffed penguin for me. I was honestly kind of terrible about it (there was another guy I had a crush on nearby and I was mortified, ya se, ya se!). I gave the penguin to my little brother that same night.
A few months later we started dating and I took that penguin back. He's been with me ever since.
Fast forward to last month. I'd been struggling through recovery, so he rented a wheelchair and pushed me through the rain all the way across the zoo because instead of a "life size" penguin plushie, he took me to experience the real deal. When they came waddling out I immediately started tearing up. Not crying-crying, because it was a group experience and I had to hold it together. But close. I got to touch them. I got to just be with them, these ridiculous little birds I've loved my whole life (sorry doggos!), and I remember thinking: I could die happy right now. I have never been this happy.
He didn't propose at the zoo. We went home, got cozy, put on Bridgerton. And right before midnight, he looked at me and said, "So, you wanna?" The exact same thing he said when he first asked me out in high school, so nervous it was basically all he could get out. Fourteen years later, same energy. He said he wanted to give me the best day ever. Penguins and a proposal? You cannot top that.
The ring is my birthstone, a ruby. Red, which is our favorite color. It's from the Ring Pop x Brilliant Earth collab, which is the most perfectly us thing I can imagine. A little playful, a little unexpected, not taking itself too seriously. Just like us.
We've been together fourteen years. It'll be fifteen in September. We were high school sweethearts who had no idea what they were doing, then became adults who had to figure it out anyway. Seven years of long distance, cross-country moves, job losses, health scares, all of it. There's something a kid from high school said once that has stayed with me. He used to say about his girlfriend: we are not each other's other half. We are each other's other whole. Together, we don't make one orange, we make a fruit basket.
I really believe that's us. He is a whole person. I am a whole person. And together we have built something I'm genuinely proud of.
This moment is supposed to be full of joy, but (and I very much hate that there’s a but) I am finding it really, really fucking hard to let it just be that.
The very next day I was already in my head about the whole thing. What are people going to say? Are we going to be judged for doing it this way? After fifteen years, after already living together, after already building a whole life? What if I lose my job before we can afford the wedding we want? What if my health takes another unexpected turn and I can't show up the way I'm imagining? My parents have their own health stuff, so will my dad be able to walk me down the aisle? Will my mom be there for all the moments I've been picturing? Will the people I love even feel safe to come out and celebrate? 🤯
I told my therapist: never has the future felt so unreachable.
What's strange is that I know how to do hard things. I've been doing hard things my whole life. School, career, caretaking, surviving. I have a whole damn toolkit for navigating difficulty. What I don't have is a toolkit for letting something just be good. For sitting inside joy without immediately scanning for everything that could take it away.
I'm aware of how that sounds. And I'm also trying to be gentle with myself about it, because I think it makes sense. When you've spent most of your life in responsibility mode, when your default is handle it, plan for it, prepare for the worst, joy can feel almost dangerous. Like if you let yourself have it fully, you're setting yourself up for something.
I'm trying to find the thread of joy in all of this and really pull at it. Because I know it's there. I know I deserve to be happy about this. We love each other. We want to declare that in front of the people we love. That's the point. That's the whole point.
The fruit basket is real. The ruby ring is real. The penguin experience was real. And honestly? It was the best day I'd had in a very long time.
Recuerda: Some of us spent so long learning how to survive the hard things that we forgot to practice receiving the good ones. Joy is not a trap. You're allowed to be in it.