Okay, okay, I know everyone is expecting me to talk about some wonderfully romantic proposal Noel made to me on a beach in the South Pacific somewhere (at this point, I am waving my hand in the general direction of any island near New Zealand, which could be in any given direction), but it didn’t quite happen that way.
Noel can sometimes put the cart in front of the horse when he’s excited. It’s fine. I talk quickly when I am excited and I’m sure it annoys him to no end sometimes. Anyway, he came home from work yesterday and said he’d been talking to my parents and siblings about engagement rings, and stuff like that. I mean, we’ve been together for 17 years, so it’s not like we haven’t made a commitment to one another in every aspect of our lives. The only thing marriage gives us is legal recognition of a full relationship, so it’s really, to me, a technicality.
Anyway… Noel got home, we were in the living room, and he made the (what I felt was) off-the-cuff question of if I would marry him. I answered something like, “Um, duh, of course I will”, thinking we have already discussed this all and I thought it was pretty clear we would, at some point, get married after we worked the logistics out of how to incorporate our New Zealand friends and family with our American friends and family into one or two ceremonies, or maybe one ceremony and one party, or whatever combination we would make. We had a big hug and a kiss and I really didn’t think, “Oh my God! I’m engaged!” Because I’ve been engaged pretty much for 17 freakin’ years!
This morning, I was at work, talking to Don in his office, when Don’s phone rang. It was Noel for me. He reminded me to grab a few things from work (he’s at home today), and then said that he’d put on Facebook that we were engaged, and went into the detail about this, that, and the other thing.
Then, it dawned on me that I had not called my parents or siblings to let them know this all, and they might read it on Facebook and be angry with me. To be fair, it was about 11 PM or midnight where they were when he asked, they are at market, and I’m thinking that they probably have an early start. Why call them with, “Hey, we’re now really really engaged now we can really really get married?”
Today has been really busy at work with end-of-term stuff, trying to get my car repaired after being hit in a parking lot yesterday (that’s a story for another blog), getting ready to take the dog to the kennels so we can head away, chasing after delinquent / missing students, and so on. So things are kinda slipping my mind a bit.
So… a million and one friends and family have called and written and liked the update on Facebook, and thank you all for your support and love and kind words. I called my Mom really quick to let her know and make sure she wasn’t upset, and she was like, “Uh, no… we got the idea when Noel was talking about engagement rings.” Implied in there was, And you’ve been engaged for 17 freakin’ years pretty much!
Well then. I’m engaged-engaged. Looks like I need to start thinking seriously about how we’re going to logistically make this all happen!
(Pssst. I added a new category for these sorts of blogs. It’s called “My Big Fat Gay Wedding”.)
Beam Me Up, Scotty 
Well – let’s hear about the wedding – get on the ball!