My Husband Proposes Today

Next month we will celebrate our 12th anniversary. A clean dozen, well it hasn't really been clean. It has been up and down and sometimes downright messy. I can laugh now about mopping up vomit when we first discovered Ella gets carsick, but it wasn't funny at the time.

Over half our marriage has been centered where we live now, something I find hard to believe. We have connected with our community, our church, our friends. We had babies here. I saw the man I loved, because he was so much fun to play with, become the man I love because he isn't faking it when he is pleased to get a welcome home gift from his girls that some would see as a box full of scribbled on paper. I would guess he still has those drawings somewhere.

We have changed. Mostly we like who we are now better than our younger versions.

And now we finally culminate in a day that I have waited for longer than I have truly understand.

Today my husband proposes.

Not to me.

To a committee of four academics who will decide if his research is valuable or worthy to pursue. Who will decide if his study is structured in a way that it will actually capture the data he seeks to find. People who have a lot of power over our lives.

I am in awe of the event that takes place today at 2:00, but not worried. He is ready.