"Ring Shopping"
Don’t get your panties in a bunch. We didn’t even get close to the engagement section. Well, that’s not entirely true; I was sized, and in case you’re wondering, I’m a four and a half. “Skinny fingers,” he grinned.
In Tiffany’s, he promised to show me “the good stuff”—stuff I had always passed on my way to the back to buy gifts—not for myself, of course. For graduations and birthdays. Fifty-dollar key chains and the like.
“You physically jumped away from the engagement ring section,” he said.
I laughed, commented on the pushy saleslady to divert. Because it turns out that I’m not ready to marry just yet, even though I love him. Fuck, it feels like I just got divorced. Comparatively, these past three months don’t quite come close to the seven legal years with my ex, plus the two and a half before we got engaged.
Granted, he is sweeping me off my feet—something I said I would never trust in. Pragmatic to a fault, I’ve always believed in the bricks and mortar of the third pig’s house to the wispy straw dreaminess of the first. It wasn’t sexy, this idea I’ve had of relationships, but it was sturdy.
Take today, for instance: we woke early, went for a run together, then he made-to-order my omelet with mushrooms, spinach, and cheese. At the mall, he bought me Asics and some new running clothes. It’s something he’s been wanting to do for weeks, and finally I let him, even though I don’t need any of it.
That’s how we ended up in the proximity of the place with little blue boxes.
“Do you like that one?” he pointed to a princess cut solitaire with baguettes.
“That’s another kind of ring,” I said, refocusing on the round one with the square aquamarine center.
And though I’ve never been in love like this—where I am standing at the beginning, can’t think of a single reason not to be together, and the little voice in the back of my head that compromises and waits for something to change hasn’t even politely coughed—forever seems like it’s coming too fast.
It’s something we’ve talked about, something he knows—that the word, ‘marriage’ makes my skin jump, that I want to enjoy this nowness of being courted, that there are two huge unknowns I need some practical working knowledge about before we can really think about it. And we’ve got time. We’ve got the rest of our lives.
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A recent study shows that women need girlfriends to keep their levels of serotonin at healthy levels. Going through something similar? Completely disagree? Comment and let me know...we'll get through this together.