I had had a Bad Day.
The sort that leaves you tired and twitchy and ready to grumble at anything brave enough to get in your way. At least it was a Friday, not that that helped much. I was in A Mood. In the 10 minutes it took me to drive from my office back home I had gone from tired to agitated to seething. One giant roller coaster of emotions, that was me.
When I stepped through the door the boy was there to give me a hug. Not that he had any idea of the snit I was in; he just likes to greet me at the end of the day with a hug. I was having none of it. Didn’t he realize that everything was horribly and completely wrong? How could he be so cheerful?
Realizing I was going to be difficult he pulled me over to the couch and asked me about my day and I proceeded to grumble about the unfairness of the world and my life and everything. Ever the optimist, he suggested we go for a drive to cheer me up. Did he not catch the part where I said everything sucked? I wondered. What is he smiling so much for? Annoying. But I decided to go. I guessed it wouldn’t hurt.
There is this beach wall near our home that we sometimes go to at the end of the day to watch the boats and the sunset and talk. This is where he took me. I sat on the wall and glowered. It had been a hard few months. The boy’s schedule had been crazier than usual and we had barely seen each other all summer. He had taken a giant leap of faith in June and left a regular paying gig to open a lounge with two of his friends. We weren’t sure when we would see money from it. My company had issued company wide pay cuts earlier that year but was working us all harder than ever. I didn’t have time to run anymore; we didn’t have money for yoga. All of this was rolling around in my head, but I was too frustrated to put it into words. Instead I grumbled, “I hate all of my clothes”.
His face lit up. He had something new for me to wear, he said. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a ring and asked me to marry him.
Best day of my life.
{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
Adorable story!
aw! it’s amazing that he didn’t wait for a better moment and instead knew that he would fix so much by doing that. it’s funny how personal and lovely a good proposal story is.
Ohhhhh
SUCH a lovely story! I love the line about having something new for your to wear. Beautiful.
aw so sweet! what a great way to end an awful day!
Awww. I know I shouldn’t say it but life is better when in love.
Aww what an amazing end to a crappy day.
that is so awesome! clever fellow you’ve got
Oh. Yes. Wonderful man who saw the opportunity in the grumble.
@all You know, most people I’ve told this story to, IRL, sort cluck-clucked and looked at me sadly. The boy and I had a trip planned the following week to Kaua’i and everyone (myself included) was expecting him to do it then. I should have known better. He never does things the obvious way. Neither of us are grand gestures people so this was perfect for us. We still laugh over his, I have something new for you to wear comment.
Your story sounds a lot like ours, which I wrote about a while ago. Definitely not a photographed event, bu I think that makes it even sweeter.
Great proposal story. I so love the intimate, unexpected ones versus the fancy, planned, hide the ring in the dessert sort.
A friend of mine got engaged similarly – on the beach after a hard day of bad luck and bad moods. Her guy bought her a Slurpee and took her to watch the sunset. She said she slurped away all while he was proposing.
oh my god, kc! what a beautiful story. it might be the pms, it might not, but i seriously teared up after reading this. i love when it’s unexpected like that. mine came on a cold and rainy day that i was not looking forward to because i was up against a deadline to file a story. it just seemed to put everything into perspective.
also, i love how everything that’s going badly somehow translates into “i hate my clothes.” i laughed out loud when i read that part.