2012!

It’s a new year!

I find it incredibly difficult to believe that 2011 has literally whizzed past in a matter of a few blinks, and that it’s already 2012! Last post was in July, and I guess so much has happened since, that I don’t really know where to start.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve thought about writing something, anything just to put it down on record but the thought of putting thought to paper (or internet) somehow makes me feel like it’s not as personal anymore. Or that the story’s not so “mine” anymore.

But it is the New Year, and I find it necessary to pen these thoughts down because it makes it real.

So... here goes!

I’m engaged! Most, if not all my friends already know, and it’s been a really exciting time since the proposal. In many ways, I’m tired of re-telling the story of how D proposed, because there are no words that can really adequately sum up my emotions of what he did, and why it was so special and how it made me feel.

I guess here is an alternative perspective to the story I usually tell everybody. And this, I believe, is a better story to tell—just that it’s not as interesting to hear in real life hehe.

D is a special guy. He has his own way of doing things, ways of which I’m familiar with and know him for. He loves me dearly, and wants nothing less for me. After dating for 5 years, I once mentioned that his proposal will come as no surprise. Especially when we’ve aimed to get married from the start of our relationship!

Engineering his plans in his head, and even some in writing, he carefully planned out the sequence of events. He crafted out his lines meticulously, bringing me through the day designed for me. It was my birthday and he brought me to very significant places—places where we had significant memories. Specific places that have changed our lives, or caused it to take a turn for the better.  As means of a very private and a very personal gifting time. I really don’t like sharing the places—they’re very personal to me and I find that if I shared it, I will dilute the meaning of the place.

Happy to share the first place though :) D took me around these places blindfolded and told me to guess where it was after given ONE hint at each place. And for each place I guessed correctly (naturally, I guessed it all!), I received a token to “mark the significance” of the place. So the first place was where we first met and got to know of each other—where we had our lives shaped and started to notice each other and who we were in our group of friends. We were at SMKDJ, our old secondary school—where he first noticed me and realised that I wasn’t as stuck up as people said I was! My token was an old (true to the year!) 2004 school curriculum card that he used to pass to me to take his extra curricular attendance at CF. The real one! What a hoarder to have kept something like that! Hehe :)

So anyway the day ensued and after a day of bringing back old memories, and reminding me of why he loves me so much and vice versa, he also made a birthday video for me. Consisting of all the weird and ugly photos of me he’s taken over the years, all fitted into the perfect timeline of our favourite song :)

It was shocking and sweet all the same time, such a wonderful song peppered with ugly juvenile faces of us in our teens and adulthood :) It tells me that although I am so extremely un-photogenic and am disgusting-looking at times (as immortalised by pictures D:), he still loves me. It still amazes me just how much he means to me, and how much I mean to him. I find it almost impossible that a guy like him can love me, even with all my terrible short comings and inadequacy.

After the video, we got to talking and (this is the part where it all blurs in my head) he starts sharing with me with a tone of absolute certainty that I am a part of his future—that I am someone he considers a part of who he is and who he will become. Adding that life, as he knows it, will change so much in the near future and he wants me to be in it with him for a very long time.

“We’ve been together for 5 years, and I brought you to 5 places, but only gave you 4 tokens. I have one more token for you, so close your eyes again please”

With all the excitement and some thoughts all lost in hindsight and translation, I will share with you the words that changed my life.

With my eyes closed, he got off the seat and went down on one knee and said, 

“Keshia Kan, will you marry me?”

After 10 seconds I said “Yes”