So let's give a play by play of how it went down. Kim had gone to Charleston for the weekend with her friend Dava to see their friend Lauren. Without her in town I kicked into high gear. I got off work at 1 pm on Saturday. I took a trailer of pine straw to her parents house. When I was there I talked to her mom about asking Kim to marry me and she said she was on board with the idea. Alright, one family down, one family to talk to. It was now about 2:30 pm as I left Kim's parent's house and headed towards my hometown (3 hours away). I got down home and met up with my mom. We went to dinner and discussed me asking Kim to marry me and my mom assured me that she thought it was an excellent idea. Actually the conversation went like this:
Me: What would you think about me asking Kim to marry me?
Mom: Well, son that's not a question I can answer. Only you can know if she's who you want to marry
Me: No, I'm not asking if you think I think I want to marry her. I'm asking you how you feel about me telling you I want to ask her to marry me.
Mom: Ohhh, well I think that's a great idea.
At dinner my mom and I discussed how Kim has her life pretty well together, how she has a great head on her shoulders, how she is down to earth, and how she motivates me very well. After dinner we went back to my mom's house where she gave me the ring my dad gave her (we'll come back to why I used this ring later). I left my home town and arrived back in the upstate around midnight. I got up the next day ready to clean the house and prepare for Kim's return. Now at this point I have been told by Kim that her and Dava would be back around dinner time. Normally I would have thought "yeah right" but I was so amped up about proposing that I actually forgot who they were and thought they would keep with the itinerary. So I proceed to spend the afternoon cleaning the house, setting up what seemed like 1000 tea candles, and making an overly gushy play list on iTunes. I then spent the next five hours waiting. Because that's what you do when you're waiting on three friends who haven't seen each other in a while to say goodbye. So we skip ahead five hours because I'm not gonna narrate me watching a Top Gear marathon or Diamonds are Forever. Kim texts me when she's exiting the nearby town like I asked her to so I can light the overly ambitious tea lights I have put out. When Kim opens the door I am kneeling in the center of the living room with a lawn mower in front of me (well if we're looking at houses we're gonna have to cut the grass). And I ask her if she would be a home owner with me. She says yes and comes over and hugs me. I'm still kneeling at this point and reach down to pick up the ring. When she leans back from hugging me I'm holding up the ring and ask her if she would also be my wife. With a very stunned and surprised look and says "for real?" and then lots of bouncing and giddiness ensued. And that's the story of how I asked Kim to marry me.
You know you always hear people talk about how you'll know when you meet "the one". Well hogwash. Now I'm not saying that I don't know that Kim's the "one" and that I haven't known for a while I'm just saying it's not like a light bulb going on all of a sudden. It's more like a light on a dimmer switch and it just slowly gets brighter over time. The longer I was with Kim the more I realized she was the perfect fit for me.
She really works well with my personality. She doesn't bug and pester me about things I need to do, but rather offers kind and subtle encouragement and that's what I need. She's not someone behind me pushing forward. She's someone standing beside me tugging on my elbow saying let's move forward. And I absolutely love that. I heard last week that the number one reason most marriages fail isn't because of money or other factors you normally think of it's because of the way they fight. And that's the other thing I really love about our relationship. We don't argue much but when we do it's not like a flashback to high school. We're constructive and polite (well as polite as you can be in a disagreement). We actually discuss the problem and don't just place blame or call each other names. We actively work towards finding a solution instead of trying to establish a "winner". But like I said we don't argue much. Another huge thing too is we try to be nice to each other. Just tonight, in our tiny kitchen, we were both trying to do things that required more room than either of us had and yet we were apologizing to each other for being in the way. It was just a small thing that makes me realize we are ready to get married because we both care more for the other. Even if it is just about who was in line for the sink first. It's just one of the few things that point me to why she's perfect for me. My father passed away on 5-14-99. Kim's birthday is 5-14-84. While I know nothing could ever replace my father I feel like it was God's way of saying "here's someone to help ease the pain and add some joy." Also my parents were married on 6-13-70. The day I met Kim was 6-13-08 and from that point we've been pretty much inseparable. That's why I wanted to use my mom's ring. I figure there were 29 good years in there for my parents, and there were the dates from all our lives that lined up, that it seemed right to me. So now the planning begins and so does the rest of our lives. It's been great so far and I can only imagine it getting better.
