EEEEEEE!! I'm getting MARRIED!!!!!!

Last Piece of the Puzzle

I was so excited for a sleep-in day. Even though my parents were in town to celebrate my and Jannaya's birthdays, they said they'd be shopping on Saturday morning, which gave us girls nothing to do but catch up on some much-needed sleep. My sisters were dozing in Jannaya's room and I was in mine, having crashed after some late-night girl talk.

As is my bladder's custom, it awoke me far too early in the morning (around 7:30) with a request for a walk across the living room. Just as I returned, settled back into bed and put my earplugs back in, there was a light knock on the suite door. Shrugging it off as a knock on the neighbour's door upstairs, I closed my eyes just in time to hear that knock again. Now I knew where it was coming from, and a small surge of hope shot me to my feet. I yanked out my earplugs, grabbed my housecoat off my door, and stepped outside of my room. Jannaya saw me and rapidly retreated from the door she'd just about opened.
"Maybe you'd better get it," she said, running back into her bedroom.

Two things hit me when Bryan came into view with a huge smile on his face: the first was shock. My brain had to quickly catch up with the reality that the man who usually holds my heart from hundreds of miles away was now standing across the room from me. The second was "oh crap!" My hair was a tangled mess, I was wearing my baggiest pajamas ever, and I had fart breath from wearing my retainer all night. These two reactions duked it out for center attention, but finally the shock won and I walked slowly up to Bryan and we hugged as my pinched voice declared my pleased surprise. I had daydreamed for so long that Bryan would somehow be able to come share my birthday with me, and now he was here! I could hardly wrap my mind around it. He'd ridden a bus all night from Slave Lake and walked to my place from the bus depot. As Bryan and I hugged, Jannaya came over and handed me a listerine strip and told me my breath was probably horrible.

Screw sleep-in day!

Bryan and I went out for breakfast at Tim Horton's, then sat and visited for awhile before returning home. I was still a greaseball so I hit the shower, singing happy little songs to myself, and then changed into some clothes that made me feel pretty. Bryan came into my room and asked if I wanted my birthday present now. Of course I said yes, so we sat down on the edge of my bed and he handed me a shoebox-sized gift with a card on top. Inside the card was a red construction paper heart with twelve small squares cut out of it. I wasn't quite sure what to make of it, even though the card designated it "the last piece of the puzzle". I set it aside and was about to open the gift, but Bryan stopped me and pointed to a puzzle that hung on my wall. It was my Christmas gift...Bryan had put together a puzzle depicting a scene from Central Park, leaving out a large heart-shaped chunk, and glued it to a whiteboard. Inside the hole was the message "A gift to my girl, with all my love. Maybe a trip to Central Park, ny, someday?"

Now as I took the puzzle off my wall and sat back down beside Bryan, he handed me the construction paper heart and I set it into the heart-shaped hole. The twelve small squares let only a few letters from the original message show through. They spelled out "will you marry me?"

Somehow my first thought was, "of course, someday." It was as if I automatically chopped off any attempt to realize that this was happening here and now, unable to let that hope rear its head. But then Bryan was shifting; he rose from beside me and said, "let's do this right" and got down on his knee in front of me, pulling a small black box from behind his back. Reality crashed in like a tidal wave and I began to gasp little sobs of joy. Everything around me seemed fuzzy and surreal and I couldn't even feel myself shaking, but I saw it when Bryan lifted my hand and looked up at me and said, "Kjersti, will you marry me?"

I saw the yellow-gold round solitaire come out of its box and slide onto my quaking finger and still I couldn't formulate any kind of response. I kept gasping past the lump in my throat as if I'd forgotten the proper way to breathe. Bryan was still on his knee in front of me. I pulled him towards me and squeezed him, feeling more in-the-moment than I've ever felt before. Here and now was perfect, and nothing else existed. There wasn't a concrete thought; there was nothing to guide my reaction but pure joy. Finally the word "yes" eked out with a sob and I continued to squeeze Bryan, who had a lot of relief mixed in with his happiness. He'd pulled it off without a hitch!

When I found my voice in full strength a few minutes later, I uttered, "holy crap" a number of times. Bryan sat beside me again and handed me the shoebox-sized gift, which turned out to be a wedding planner and organizer. We briefly glanced through it and I was excited by the reason for having it, and the to-do list part of me was SO happy to have such an extensive resource item in my hands.

What followed was a day of happy announcements; a surprise visit from Bryan's parents, who he'd arranged to have in town for this special weekend; and, to top it all off, a surprise birthday party in the evening that Bryan had arranged for Jannaya and Graham to organize while we were out for supper with the Friggstad and Aicken parents. It was definitely the best day of my life! Bryan and I ended the evening with a walk to the river where we could sit and be alone for awhile.

It is SO right to be with him. I am so thankful to God for bringing us together! Not only am I engaged to a good man, but I'm engaged to someone who has been an incredible boyfriend and will be an incredible husband too. I'm so proud of him and can't wait to take his name! But for now I'm going to soak in the joy of just being engaged, and continue to stare at my ring as often as I can.