So, the Sunday before the new year.
Our walk in the woods out at Nolan's. Snowshoes on for a good hard hike way out to picnic rock, a big flat rock by a rushing stream that was so loud it left me deaf and yet I had what felt like tunnel hearing while Ben talked, laying the ninth marriage proposal of my young life on my head to weigh me down, drowning me in his frustration which came out of nowhere after I dropped a piece of my heart in his lap and then promptly snatched it back. I jumped the gun. I fucked up. I should have left things alone. I was confused. I don't know which end is up and I'm having trouble going on feeling.
Ben's words on our picnic in the snow struck me dumb and have haunted me since. A ring produced and held out in a shaky hand this time. Again, an offering of a life resumed after an interruption and here, here, just take a chance at a real life and it probably won't be so romantic and I wouldn't be blinded with huge sweeping gestures and maybe it'll be so normal it's sick but it will be stable and kind and wonderful and loving and all the things life is supposed to be when the embellishment is stripped away.
Real life. With a real man.
One who is willing to put his money where his mouth is after I failed to take him seriously the first time. One who's alive and not messed up. One who beat his demons and came out victorious. One who knows how to be strong and yet still be an equal. One who can atone for his mistakes and learn from them and grow from them. Now they're just beating me into the ground repeating his good qualities. Making sure I know.
I know.
Here's the tangent I know you want: Nine proposals spanning thirty-three years. Andrew was the first, when we were three. He wanted me to bring my apple and live with him in his tree house. He liked my frog barrettes. Cole was next, with two proposals over two years, I was too young the first time. Then someone else, I haven't talked about him at all. Jacob was next. Then came the disaster that was Christian, Ben and Joel looking to try and help end my misery with promises, nobly so.
And now Ben returns, this time with a ring to show he's not going to give up on me. That he's putting value into his words in a way I never required him to before now. He's offered me half of his heart to replace the one that I broke.
I took the ring and looked at it. It was a simple classic princess cut amethyst on an art-deco band. An antique ring, no less, which he knew I would love. I smiled. He said don't put it on, just to take it home and put it in a box and if I ever wanted to I could put it on and think about his offer.
It wasn't extended lightly. He isn't trying to rescue me. He...he's looking for the rest of his life, in me. I shook my head. It's not fair.
I can't do this.
He wouldn't take it back and so I put it on my chain to keep it safe for the trip home and he smiled tightly, his smile that he wears when he doesn't quite know what his next move is. Ben, aware of my entire history and trying to circumvent it via ignoring it instead of trying to fix everything. Pretending history doesn't exist and living in a moment in a way I've never seen anyone else pull off. Mindfulness. Intensity of a different sort.
I've never had this much trouble with a girl before.
I tried the ring on yesterday for the first time. It's beautiful. I can hear his quiet plea not to make him wait forever. I'm just not sure that his heart is big enough to hold both of us. He may say it is, but really, I'm getting really good at breaking hearts and I can't risk losing another.
