Rules of Engagement

As of March 18, 2007, Claire Anne S. Miranda is off the market, boys! Hehehehehe. I'm engaged! I'm engaged! I just cannot contain how elated I feel. I look at my ring and I just love how they sparkle. I've worn rings on my left ring finger before but this ring just feels so different. It's amazing how different it feels mainly because of what it stands for. It's a symbol that this man sees how valuable I am to his life that he is not willing to wait and risk losing me. For the first time of my life, I feel like I'm the one being pursued.

The proposal wasn't a storybook one. There were no romantic candlelit dinners. No string quartet playing in the background. No overly creative schemes to hide the ring and eventually, present it. It happened after a big snow storm that hit Fort Drum where we were left stranded in his room in his military base. We were watching Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry movie and I was wearing a hoodie, jeans and sneakers. Then we got around to talking about surprises and just out of the blue, he just brought out a little, black box. I even had to tell him, "Wait! You have to kneel first!" Now I know why he told me not to go snooping around his room when he was answering nature's call. He knew I liked to open drawers and look around. He presented me the engagement ring with the matching wedding band to which I commented, "I'll just take one for now."

But in its simplicity and ordinariness, lies its beauty. It's a reflection of how a marriage should start : a very humble beginning with loads of humor and the promise that from that moment on, things would just get better and better.

A Paradox of Emotions

How should I describe what I'm feeling? Alot of changes are happening in my life in such a fast pace. For a well-thoughout girl, I am here in such an unorthodox relationship and engagement. I'm in a limbo stuck between a bf-gf relationship and an engaged relationship. Am I making sense? Let me explain. Jorge hasn't formally proposed yet so therefore, we are not yet formally engaged. But for some crazy reason, we have concrete plans of marrying in two months! So I can honestly say everything is just upside down, which I think adds up to the appeal of the relationship. It is anything but predictable and it gives an exhilirating sense of adventure! If you know me well enough, I don't do well with constant spontaneity, I always want to plan but it's so funny how easily I can just resign myself to the heavens and let Providence direct my course.

Better judgment cautions me to slow things down and get to know him more and yet experience tells me that knowing him for a year or 8 years would not matter. Even after 8 years of being with someone, I was faced with the realization that I never really knew the person iI was with. Maybe those 3 years of long distance relationship was God's way of letting me know that He has been training me...bootcamp way...for Jorge. If it's meant to be, it'll happen. Whatever decision I'm meant to make, I would make it. With the advent of Jorge's early deployment, I am hounded by feelings of excitement (in getting married) and worry (that I won't get to spend so much time with my new husband). I feel less lonely knowing that I finally have someone with me willing to go the distance and yet I fear the thought of loneliness when he goes to his 1-year deployment.

With Jorge, I've broken down certain conventions such as agreeing to get married before his deployment in a civil wedding ceremony (The church will come post deployment in Manila). This is a detour from my comfort zone. Every action I've taken, I've done so calculatingly not realizing that in order to live life, one has to take risks and to trust someone...again. I'm not sure how married life would be for me. I sure know it's not going to be a bed of roses but I've learned enough to know that I can try.