TO LACK COLOUR

First of all, I’m sorry this got lost in my inbox! I’m not sure if you’ll still see this considering it looks like its been sitting in here for quite some time, but if you do see it I apologize for not answering earlier!

Austin and I had been dating for quite a while at the point when he decided he was going to put his punk-rock-personhood on hold and join the air force, so it wasn’t so much of a “surprise” proposal as it was a series of conversations about getting married. The first of which I said no to, not for reasons that had anything to do with him, but because I had personal hang-ups about the stigma around getting married young. I’ve always been a very headstrong, independent sort of person and as shallow as it admittedly is, I just balked at the idea of what other people would think about me getting married at 19. I knew that I was sure of him, and had no intention or desire to spend the rest of my life with anyone other than him, but I knew most people think its a reckless or irresponsible move to make, and I valued myself a pragmatic sort of person. Ultimately I got over myself, because I loved him far more than I disliked the idea of being “Mrs.” anything at 19 years old, and I plucked up the courage to tell my parents that their very responsible, independent daughter was going to get married. I was prepared for shock and resistance, I was not prepared for my father saying something to the effect of, “You know, if it was anyone else I would say absolutely not, but it isn’t, its Austin.” Anyway, he did sort of sneak a proposal in the day before we were going to be driving down to Bisbee with our families to get hitched. We didn’t have rings yet, were were planning on just getting some after the fact, and he took me up to Mt. Lemmon (a significant place for us for a multitude of reasons) we went on a little hike up to a spot were you can see the entire town we grew up in and we hung out up there for a while, just goofing around in the cold, playing with sticks and stuff like the children we are, and on the way back down the hill he surprised me the the whole down-on-one-knee schtick and asked me to marry him with a ring his mother gave him that had belonged to his grandmother in germany. All I remember is being genuinely taken by surprise, and him sounding so tentative and nervous, and me laughing because we were literally getting married the next day, its not like he didn’t already know my answer, and me saying (only slightly choked up), “Yes, you goof. I’d marry you tomorrow.”

And thats the whole story, sorry that was so long! Brevity and I do not get along.