From Miss to Mrs.

Getting from there to here July 21, 2010

It happened on Saturday, July 3^rd in the third hour of the afternoon.

I.GOT.ENGAGED!

Can you believe it? Because I still find myself shaking my head and pinching myself in disbelief. I’ll get to the proposal details later.

What’s most important, he asked. And I said yes.

It’s been quite a two weeks since “The Moment”. Many friends and family have called, emailed and sent postal notes of congratulations to us from across the globe. I have new Facebook friends and having been shaking hands and hugging people I don’t know. To say it is exciting is an understatement. Our engagement news was even blogged about by my ever-famous friend, Monica Mingo.

The outpouring of love has been tremendous.

But let me talk about love for a moment. I’ve got “a special kind of love” (I have said this throughout our courtship – perhaps a wedding theme, pondering and making a note…).

I have dated, and I have “dated”. And I can say I’ve seen and been in love before. But the depth of love and understanding I am feeling and experiencing in my relationship is something so great, so big, so generous, that even as I sit here it brings tears to my eyes. (I have been crying many tears of joy lately, so let me have it.)

Before meeting my fiancé (said like Dwight on the Real Housewives of ATL), I can’t quite pinpoint it, but perhaps I simply gave up. Hell, I was 35 at the time and as I expressed to my favorite aunt recently – about my last relationship which seemed to go and on and on with empty promises (ie. “I ‘think’ I may marry you… one day) and no real progress – I began to think “Well, I am approaching age of spinsterhood.  Maybe I am to get in where I fit in and marry him when he finally gets around to asking. Even though he doesn’t do this, or say that, or blah, blah, blah.”

I was settling. And deep down I knew it.

He never asked.

A good girlfriend of mine said the other day about our last relationships (both very much the same in a lot of ways – successful men, long distance, etc) that we seemed to become conditioned to accept less, or something. It’s as if somewhere along the way, the notion of real love became tarnished. I’ve seen my fair share of other relationships fail (hell my own!), rampant cheating, and women cupping large glasses of wine while saying, “everything’s fine, everything’s fine!” when they had no idea I saw their husband hours before out doing unhusbandly things (and some wives doing things too). Not to say I didn’t have plenty of great relationship examples, my parents, grandparents, friends and others. But still, dare I say I became a little jaded about love.

Well, jaded and Miss Ali D don’t exactly match, by the way. I needed to make some changes.  First, I walked away from that relationship I was holding onto. And then I tried again. Right on over to Match.com. All I wanted to do is date, and date local. It wasn’t exactly a cake walk either, but being open, honest and accepting with myself really helped me stop and discover there are so many great people out there.

Yes, it is about timing, but I also think it’s about really being open to the possiblities. I proclaimed last May I wanted Summer 2009 to be my best summer ever. Don’t they say, write it down and make it happen.

It happened.

Love with promises and progress.