You don’t need an online community of women to help and
support you as you plan your “big day.” No one does.
Based on some of the information gleaned from friends who
did buy into various websites that host estrogen-fueled bickering, I’m
glad I did not succumb to advertisers’ temptations ever present on the
periphery of my Facebook wall from the first day I changed my relationship
status to “engaged.”
Maybe my situation is a lot different from other people. My
mother’s cancer came back some months before my engagement and such news forced
me to consider my own mortality, as well as the desire to make her happy by
witnessing my vows to the man she trusted would be my partner throughout the
rest of my days.
He didn’t propose in any flagrantly romantic fashion. We
happened to find a bench overlooking Central Park because he had an appointment
with the doctor that 4 years ago surgically removed his cancer. I was having a
hypoglycemic fit and felt he was acting strange. I wanted to sit and eat my
pastry and drink my damn diner coffee in the chill of the early January
afternoon. When my sugar levels normalized and I realized that he was cancer
free for a 4th year in a row (they say 5 years with no signs of
return greatly increase the percentage of never having the same form of
carcinoma again), I started to kiss his face. The sweet nothings I’m prone to
spew started flowing as I found immense joy in knowing that my love was clear
of cancer for another year.
“We are going to be healthy and happy and I will make sure
we eat well so that your body is in great condition and do you know you’re
really handsome? Why are you so good-looking? I want to kiss your face all the
time! Like, every day I want to kiss it until both of us can’t breathe.”
::kisskisskiss::
Mind you, he is sitting on the bench completely quiet and I
was smothering him a little, because that’s what I do… it’s kinda cute, though,
OKAY?! My praises prattle on for what seems like several minutes and then, in a
very normal manner, he spoke, “So, will
you marry me?”
The casual tone with which he asked, the sudden break in my
logorrhea of love, the entire situation seemed to halt for an awkward moment as
my brain tried to make sense of the bauble in his hand, down near our laps.
Sally, the glorious little jewel that stole my heart at the elusive
Philadelphian jeweler’s, which boasts no signage or public access aside from
ringing a doorbell and being buzzed in, was in front of me, but it didn’t make
sense!
He wasn’t on one knee. The ring wasn’t in a box. We had just
walked all around Manhattan, including a visit to Tiffany’s, where I left
stating that, though there seemed Sally-esque rings, there was none comparable
to Sally’s intricate filigree and rich tones. Also, how the hell did he have
Sally? I went back to the jeweler in search of her months before, only to be
told she sold shortly after we first laid eyes on her.
Once it occurred to me that Sally was literally in my reach,
I grabbed her and placed her on my finger. She was huge! She was beautiful. It
was cold, which made my now bare hand pained in the crisp air, but I didn’t
care and my face flooded with tears and I could not control myself. Bitter was
the Christmas season that just passed, full of strife caused in part by a
step-mother-in-law and a sickly mother both with propensities for drama and a
demanding retail work schedule that left me little energy for much else. Added to
the stress was the utter disappointment I felt that I did not enter into the
New Year with a new ring and a new promise.
News of this development was only shared to closest friends
and family via text message. Well, pictures sent via text message. I wanted to
be alone with Nick but I also wanted to share the information, though minimally. The only persons
I actually bothered to call were my parents. It was quite interesting to see
the people who were offended that I chose such an informal way of notifying
them. (Weddings make people act very strange.)
Social media networks are great for keeping in touch with
people from past lives and careers, but the invasive nature of sites like
Facebook have turned me off for years. I did not plan to share this information with that community any time soon because it was so very special and intimate and I wanted to savor in
this very new thing with my love, alone.
Imagine my surprise the following morning when I awoke to 40+ notifications on Facebook. My early morning mind did not realize
that it could at all be associated with this very private new life event,
especially since I did not alert anyone aside from text or phone call. But,
people congratulated me online. Individuals who are not even “friends”
with my brother were able to see and comment on an embarrassing post and it was perplexing. Did Facebook just change its privacy policy for me to be
mortified? The following is exactly what my brother wrote:
My little sister, __________, got engaged! Congratulations are due, for sure. Also, to all
of my friends that wanted to bang her: RIP.
In addition to this undesired public announcement, he
actually tagged 12 individuals who previously expressed interest in me.
So! Since half of those people are in a completely different time zone, I woke
up to the havoc of woe and well-wishing from various different communities.
Livid is a good word to describe how I felt. Betrayed and robbed work, too. I
wanted to be the one to tell people; in my own way and in my own time. Things
don’t always work out like that, though.
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