Ok, now that I got this entry out of my system, I can spend a little more time on telling all of you about the actual event...
Yesterday afternoon, Tom called me up to tell me that he worked it out so he didn't have to have the kid that night so we could go out. He told me he had the evening all planned out and wanted to keep it a surprise. The only thing I had to do was "get all dolled up" as Tom calls it, and be ready by the time he got off of work. And so I did...
Tom ended up taking me to Larcos, an Italian chop house as they call it. We have wanted to go there for such a long time, but never got the chance to until now. It was such a wonderful meal. We ordered way too much food, but we figured it was a one time deal, so why not splurge on all of it. Our waiter was nice, but a tad on the eccentric side I guess you could say. He tried having conversations with us, but he was rather weird going about it, and we were being a little antisocial at the time, wanting to devote all of our attention on each other and our food.
We managed to have a decent dinner conversation, not focusing on work too much. Tom kept asking me different questions about how I felt about our relationship and what not. I just assumed he wanted to know where I stood because of all the fighting last week. I kept asking him the same questions, but he'd never really answer. Instead, he spent most of the time asking me questions and trying to avoid answering any of mine. Thinking back on it, I probably gave him a few too many snarky answers, showing my annoyance towards him avoiding my questions and making me talk about certain things I do not enjoy having in my relationship with him.
After dinner, we were both completely stuffed and I was ready to go home and take my shoes off. My dress shoes are always a little tight (damn wide feet) and I hate keeping them on longer that I absolutely need to. Tom insisted that we take a walk for a while, to try and walk off some of dinner. At first I protested, and when Tom wouldn't back down, tried changing my tactics to see if he'd at least let me run in to change into something a little more comfortable. He denied both of my requests and started walking down the street. We walked for a ways, until we reached one of the parks we liked to sit in some times this past summer. We sat down on a picnic table and started talking. Tom continued our conversation at dinner about our relationship. Only this time, he did all of the talking and answering.
It was there in the cold park under a nearly full moon (it was only missing a sliver) sitting on that picnic bench that he told me he wanted to be with me the rest of his life. He said that he couldn't imagine what his life would be like without me in it and didn't like thinking about that possibility any more. He kept talking about all these things he wants to have with me and some where in there, he managed to pull the ring box out of his pocket without me looking. Suddenly he opened it up and handed it to me, asking me to marry him.
I was floored.
I mean, I could never have guessed it in a million years that Tom had that planned that evening. Everything seemed so spur of the moment, but apparently he's had it planned for quite some time. At first, I didn't know what to do or say when I saw it. I just stared at the ring sparkling in the moonlight. Even there, in the dark, the ring looked absolutely gorgeous. I kept looking up at Tom and back down at the ring, and back up at Tom, and down at the ring. I didn't know what to say. All that kept coming to mind was 'Wow' and that isn't much of an answer.
I didn't say yes right away. I couldn't. Theres too much at stake for both of us, for us to just rush into all of this. Like I said, it seemed so sudden for him to do this, especially after some of the things he said to me last week during our arguments. I had to ask him, I had to be absolutly certain that he wanted to do this, and that he meant it. I had to make sure that he understood that this move wasn't a fix-all to all of our problems in our relationship. He needed to make it clear to me that he wants this to happen and understands what it will take on his part to make this right. Once we had that all of that cleared up, of course I said yes.
I've always wanted to be with Tom. I've always wanted to make him happy and do what's best for him. I've always wanted to be for him what no one else was willing to give him. Its all the external stuff in our relationship that has made it so difficult for me. And, after some of the decisions he made early on in the relationship also made it difficult for me to tell whether or not he was ever serious about me....but I've made my decision now and we're in this together. Pretty soon it'll be 'for better or for worse' for the two of us...