Talking About Forever

Over Christmas break that year, Daniel and I would talk every night on AOL instant messenger, rather than on the phone. (I’m not really sure why) One night, out of the blue, Daniel typed:

“You know what I’ve been thinking a lot about lately?”

“What?”

“Marrying you and if it would work.”

There was a long pause as I tried to figure out how to respond. I wasn’t freaked out or anything—after all, I had been thinking about it, too. I ended up replying with, “Oh really? And what have you come up with?”

“Well, I think we would both want at least four kids, am I right?” And he went on from there to mention raising our potential family Catholic, the fact that we were obviously attracted to each other, etc. I agreed with everything he said, typing short responses in between what he said with a huge grin on my face.

Daniel was sure to explain that he certainly wasn’t anywhere near making that kind of a commitment right now (after all, we had just met a few months before), but that he saw it as a possibility. I assured him that we were on the same page, and that was that.

After that conversation, a whole lot more “if we get married” statements would find their way into our days together. At some point, the “if”s turned into “when”s—I’m very sorry that I can’t remember more details on how exactly this transition happened. The point is that it happened.

And somewhere along the way Daniel asked me to marry him, in a half-joking, half-serious kind of way. I told him yes. And he kept asking, over and over again for the next couple of years—each time with a little more serious and a little less joking, but we both knew that “the real thing” wouldn’t come for a while. We joked about how we were “engaged to be engaged.”

Of course, as time went by we were growing more and more certain of our love for each other and our desire to be married someday. We couldn’t wait to get engaged so that our plans would be “for real.” By the time 2007 rolled around, Daniel told me that I could expect a proposal sometime that summer…

That will be a perfect story for next time. Have a wonderful and blessed Thanksgiving, everyone!