an engaged woman
To all my admirers, yes, the rumors are true: I am engaged. I know, I know. This is devastating news for the culture, for the hot girls, and for all my crushes I’ve developed over the decades.
I’ve been engaged for a little over a month now. The experience has been all-consuming. There’s been joy, sadness, excitement, grief, fulfillment, shame, and wonder. Everything has changed, and yet nothing has changed.
I expected the obvious out of my proposal. I don’t do well with changes or surprises. I am a deeply emotional person, so I knew it was going to trigger an intense response. To be honest, it was so intense for me that I blacked out. I really can’t tell you anything about those 2 minutes on the beach in Dennisport. What I remember isn't the proposal so much as the aftermath. The texts. The congratulations. The photos. Everyone seemed to know exactly how I should feel. I, on the other hand, felt like someone had shaken a snow globe inside my brain.
For the past few weeks, my life has been flashing before my eyes. I see visions of my younger self, the woman I’ve become, the moments that defined my relationship to romance. I also have visions of what’s to come, the family Nick and I will create, and the stability that only comes with age. This particular chapter of my life feels like purgatory, something in between. It feels like I am being pushed out of Neverland, and I am not ready to go.
I write this as I prepare to leave for a four-day music festival in Chicago. I plan to leave my ring with my fiancé, and that will be the longest I have gone without it since I got it. I make note of this because I feel as though I will be perceived normally again. Since this ring has landed on my finger and symbolized my ‘taken’ status, I’ve been treated differently. People smile at me differently now. Conversations end with "Congratulations!" instead of "How's work?" Strangers notice my left hand before they know my name. It's subtle, but unmistakable. Suddenly, I seem more complete in other people's eyes. I think that is where the grief comes in. It feels like I suddenly matter, or others perceive that my life has just begun because I am now tied to this man. By the time I met Nick, I'd already become someone I was proud of. I'd earned two degrees, built a career I genuinely love, moved states, learned how to be alone, survived heartbreak, made lifelong friends, and figured out who I was. None of that seemed to carry the same cultural weight as putting a diamond on my finger. It almost feels like I earned “respect” from society because I convinced a man to settle down.
I felt shame because I let these projected thoughts and feelings consume me. To be honest, of course, I was excited to get engaged. I am marrying the love of my life. But also, I was grieving the freedom, the youthfulness, and the spontaneity that my life had up until that point. Part of this is simply how my brain works. I don't process major life changes cleanly or linearly. I absorb every possible meaning at once until they become impossible to separate. I’ve made the mistake of internalizing others’ expectations, feelings, and thoughts instead of being present.
On the surface, life almost looks identical. I am still waking up in the same apartment. I am still going to work. I am still consuming too much caffeine and spending too much money. Internally, there’s some kind of tectonic shift going on. For weeks, I thought I was grieving the end of one life and waiting for another to begin. Only recently, in the comedown, have I realized I wasn’t waiting for anything at all.
My life was already here.
This was so beautiful 🩶✨
:-)