A Valentine From Me to You

Since Valentine's Day is right around the corner, I thought I'd share a guest post with you that I wrote this time last year for Romance Week over at the Snowdrop Dreams blog (slightly edited to account for the passage of time!). I hope you enjoy the lurve.
***

Marriage Proposals (aka Ooh! Ooh! Pick Me!)

One of my favorite activities is to ask couples how they met. It’s a great way to quickly dig deeper and get to know people. In fact, most couples love to talk about how they met. They get that dreamy far-away look on their faces as they think back to those early days of romance and falling in love. *blissful sigh*

Another favorite of mine is to ask couples how they got engaged. Did he ask or did she? What was the setting? Was it an intimate spur-of-the-moment question or a full-fledged production complete with llamas and skywriters? Every story is different and yet they share the common threads of love and hope for the future. I can’t help but get sucked in. Romance rocks!

So in that vein, I’ll share my story with you and I want to hear yours! Deal?

I met my husband on a boat trip the week before I started my freshman year of college. It was a make-friends-before-school-starts cruise organized by the college and it worked like a charm. When I stepped off the boat, I had a ready-made group of friends to hang out with, including Dave. The guy who lived across the hall from Dave in the dorm hung out with us, too. He was cute and we started dating. It was magical and exciting.

It lasted two weeks.

And then not-so-magical guy stomped all over my freshman heart until I was sure I would die. I poured out all my pain and heartache to Dave, who listened, who was there for me, who cheered me up, who made me laugh.

I found a new kind of magic: a deeper, lasting magic. I knew without a doubt that he was The One, that I didn’t want to go a day without seeing his face, hearing his deep, rumbling laugh, and feeling his warmth.

We spent hours under the stars, talking. There was one star down low in the horizon that blinked blue and red. It was our star. If the weather was cloudy, you couldn’t always see it, but it was special. One night, the sky was dazzlingly bright with stars and it was there.

Blue. Red. Blue. Red.

Dave was standing against a boulder, holding me in his arms, while the star blinked on and off above us. I stared at him, wishing I had telepathic abilities as I sent this message to him in my mind:

“Ask me. Ask me. Ask me.”

He didn’t.

As we left and started walking back, he stopped in the middle of the path and said, “You know what? I almost...”

“What?”

“No, you’ll think...”

“What? Tell me.”

“I almost asked you to marry me back there.”

Love surged over me like a tidal wave. He’d heard. He’d felt it, too.

“It’s not too late,” I said. He grinned.

This past December was our 20th anniversary. And I’d do it all again.

What about you? Share your story!