1:28 a.m. - 2004-03-10
My Birthday Present
Boy, you know, sometimes the irony (the real, non-Alanis type of irony) just writes itself when you keep an online journal. Sitting here trying to think about how to write this, I went to flip through my archives to see what the last few entries I wrote were about. I’d forgotten the “Sudden Onset Adulthood” entry, the last one I wrote, and I laughed out loud at the title.
Disclaimer: I'm pretty sure this is the longest entry I've ever written. You've been warned. Pack a lunch.
As previously mentioned, it was my birthday on Saturday. Much to my delight, the annual spring concert of our choir fell on my birthday this year, and it’s the 60th anniversary of the choir. As a result, a ton of my friends came into town for the concert. The Raisin, Hermione, Weather Geek, others who don’t have clever nicknames that I don’t have the brain power to come up with. We had big plans for after the concert. I was surrounded by pretty much every single one of the people that I love, with maybe four exceptions. Most of them in the audience these days, but Jamie, of course, is still singing in the choir and is now also the assistant conductor, and Diana and Mama Bean are still there too. Thank God.
My birthday was pretty nondescript for most of the day. To my delight, the Raisin came and had lunch with me on my lunch break at work, and as it turned out to be the only time we got to spend just the two of us, I was even happier that she came into town early enough to do that. God, I miss her so much.
After work, I ran over to the concert hall for the various warm ups that immediately followed me getting off work. I inhaled half of a sub that Jamie had graciously brought for me (10 out of 10 for effort, though he is apparently clueless about what I like on my subs.), while a gracious choir member did my hair for me. (Which, incidentally, looked approximately a million times better than it would have if I’d tried to do it.)
I took over half of Jamie’s dressing room (one of the perks of dating the assistant conductor), and changed and did my makeup pretty quickly, as I was already late for the choir warm up. Things trundled along as they usually do at these concerts, although I was pretty disinterested in the whole affair, more excited to see my friends than to sing the lengthy concert. We practiced with the soloist, a 76 year old man who sang with the choir in 1946-1951, which was pretty cool. People ran around, flustered and disoriented, and very suddenly it was almost 8:00. A final few touches, a bell cheer, and we were heading on stage.
The first half of the concert zipped by fairly efficiently. I found my friends in the audience, a large clump of them fairly easy to track down due to the ruckus they were repeatedly making. My feet started to hurt a little bit, and the speeches got a little endless, but nonetheless, I was having a good time. I walked off at intermission and promptly turned back around onto the stage to reset my bells for the second half of the concert.
Having gotten my bells in order, I headed backstage to stretch out my back and grab something to drink. Mama Bean gave me a can of Simpsons pop for my birthday (along with a very fabulous book), and I have to say, that drink probably saved me from passing out. Jamie, who was conducting in the second half, was shaking like a leaf out of nervousness I thought was due to conducting, so both of us probably benefited from the sugary pop. After fiddling with it for a few minutes, Jamie recruited me to help me put on his boutonniere.
(Just writing about this is getting me all flustered again.)
So Jamie’s boutonniere is on, and he’s looking extremely sharp (in my extremely biased opinion), and he asks me if I think he looks ready. I tell him he looks completely ready and absolutely wonderful.
And he drops onto one knee.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. I have never EVER EVER been so incredibly shocked in my entire life. And, of course, being totally stunned makes you say kind of ridiculous things: my response was “I have to play bells in three minutes!” Because, seriously, I was shaking all over, my heart was pounding, and the very idea of having to play bells at that point was completely terrifying. Jamie just smiled at me, made me sit down (which was a good thing), and sat there for a moment. He’s got this ring box open, with an ABSOLUTELY STUNNING ring inside it, and I could not for the life of me tell you what was running through my head. I think I said “oh my God,” which is the most articulate thing I can come up with. He tells me that he can see my heart pounding, which doesn’t surprise me because it feels like it’s going to explode out of my chest, but I don’t say anything. So we’re both sitting there, silent for what felt like an hour but was probably more like thirty seconds, and he looks expectantly at me and I ask him (kind of smart-assedly, actually, in retrospect) if he wants to ask me something.
And so he does. I think, although it’s all a little foggy, that the exact phrase was “Sarah, can I marry you? And will you marry me back?” (This phrase was utterly perfect, because we almost never say “I love you too”, it’s always “I love you back.” I don’t know why, but it’s always been that way.) It was just sweet and understated and he looked so hopeful and nervous.
So of course I say yes, because saying anything else to this wonderful perfect man that I adore would be positively ridiculous. And he slips this beautiful perfect ring onto my finger, and it slides on easy as pie due to how INCREDIBLY SWEATY my hands are (yeah, I know, isn’t it romantic?), and it fits perfectly, and I slide off my chair and I kiss him. And I kiss him, and I kiss him, and he pulls me up and he hugs me, and I almost squish his boutonniere, and then suddenly the squishing of the flower makes me remember that oh my God, I have to go play bells, and Bob is going to kill Jamie if I screw up as a result of being completely twitterpated. So I point this out to Jamie, who grins and confesses that he didn’t tell Bob what he was doing, but he has faith in my abilities and he thinks I’ll do fine.
And I’m still shaking all over, but I hug him again, kiss him again, and pull my bell gloves on over my beautiful perfect ring. He smiles at me, and I go out into the hall.
There are people milling everywhere, and the intermission is not over yet. How can the intermission not be over yet? It feels like a million years have passed. With relief, I realise I have a minute or two to spare, and I RUN, in my slip off shoes and long dress, to find Diana. And I find her, and I grab her by the hand and pull her backstage, and try to bring Mama Bean along too but she has to go to the bathroom, so it’s just me and Diana backstage, with the muffled din of the audience behind us and the entire choir milling around a few feet away.
And I tell her, and she shrieks and leaps and hugs me, and suddenly it all feels very real and I cannot believe it. I do not know how on earth I will play bells or how I will sing the rest of the concert, and Diana is hugging me and suddenly Mama Bean is there too, hugging and smiling and pulling at my glove to see the ring. So I show them the ring, and I tell them the story, and still I’m thinking I have no idea how on earth I’m going to play bells.
The chime signaling the end of intermission rings, and I take a few deep breaths, pull my bell glove back on, and go to find the bell ringers. I tell them that I apologize in advance if I suck hard, and I’ll explain after the concert, and then in whispers and pantomimes I tell the two girls who stand by me what happened. And they shriek and hug me and it is just all so surreal. And then Jamie wanders by, whistling nonchalantly, and my friends all shriek a little more and give him meaningful looks, which just make his smile even bigger. We do another bell cheer, and I’ve never needed that more than I did then. I forced myself to take deep breaths and think about the ridiculously hard music we had to play. And then we walked out on stage.
I knew Jamie was watching me, and I knew all my friends were in the audience. I didn’t know who knew, but I forced myself to smile – the most dazed smile in the history of existence, perhaps, but a smile nonetheless – and walked up to my bells. The ring was weighing on my finger underneath the glove, and suddenly a genuine smile broke out on my face. I picked up my bells in a sort of daze, and we started to play.
I couldn’t tell you very much about what we played at the time, but Jamie and I watched the tape yesterday and I cannot believe how well I pulled that off. My friends, afterwards, on hearing the story, were amazed to hear that I kept it together. Bob, naturally, gave Jamie hell for his lack of timing, and Jamie pointed out that he just knew I was talented enough to pull it off even when I was so distracted. Suddenly, bells was over, and I pulled off my gloves, causing my two friends who I’d told to lean over and peer at my finger and squeal silently. I walked, as composedly as possible, over to my place in the choir, and leaning over to the girl I stand next to in the choir, subtly point at my finger.
Naturally, she totally freaks out. And then, the girls standing around me and I break every rule that we’ve ever had drilled into us as choral singers, and start to whisper on stage. There are about six girls who figure it out, and all of them whip around to stare at Jamie in the wings. He gives them a huge grin as he stands waiting to be introduced, and none of us are listening to the speech that is droning on.
And then, suddenly, Jamie is walking on stage, about to conduct, and I get this ridiculous smile on my face, and Jamie winks at me and suddenly I’m flustered all over again. The girls around me are giggling and whispering, and I realise how hilarious the sight of the news traveling down the row must be.
Jamie starts to conduct, and the first folk song is faster than it’s ever been before, and I grin to myself at the extra bounce in his conducting. We get through the songs, and the third one in particular is great, and Jamie leaps off the podium with an extra spring in his step. He’s so full of confidence, so happy with everything, and I love him so much in that moment that I want to freeze it forever. He told me today that a big part of the reason he wanted to propose on Saturday, even with everything else going on and the nerves over conducting, was so I knew that even on the biggest night of his professional life, I was still more important. This, coming from the guy who told me when we first started going out that he could only date me if it wouldn’t interfere with school, is bigger than anything else he could possibly say. To go from being a guy who only thinks about school and work to being the guy who loves me so much that he proposes even when surrounded by other things he should be concentrating on…it’s pretty amazing.
The speeches continue after Jamie finishes conducting, and one of them is about him. He’s brought forward and presented with a gift, and the huge grin on his face is for more than just what they’re saying about him. I watch the entire choir applauding him, and I know that they all see part of what I see in him – the generous, funny, considerate man who puts so much effort into the work he does with the choir – and suddenly I am excited to get to tell everyone, knowing that even though choir is not what it used to be for me it is still a safe place where people share your joy, and there is nowhere I would rather be at that unbelievable moment in my life.
The Gospel Mass starts, and for the first time ever I get the words perfectly, a small satisfaction in comparison to the rest of my evening but nonetheless an accomplishment. I catch Jamie’s eye periodically and break out into a huge grin, with Diana right behind him grinning her head off. She is so obviously thrilled for me that I want to run across the stage and hug her – the friend I never thought I’d find after the Raisin moved away, and I’m so glad all of a sudden that she’s there with me too.
All too soon, we’re singing the cheer song and the endless Here’s to Song, and suddenly we’re lined up for “Good Night.” I pick up my bells with no longer shaking hands, and grin at the unfamiliar feeling of the ring under my gloves. (By the way, Jamie wants me to call it the Ring whenever I write about it, but given the glee with which he calls it my “birthday present”, I think that would just put fuel on the fire. Lower case it is.) We parade out as usual, and as I walk out the front door I find myself suddenly mobbed with people. Word spreads quickly (too quickly for my taste, really – I’d rather have told my friends myself, but such is the nature of the Mixed Chorus Gossip Beast, and I refuse to be too terribly upset about it.), and soon choir and non-choir members alike are mobbing me. I go to put away my bells and tell the bell ringers what happen, and their response is gleeful and impressed at how well I’d played. I leave the bell ringers to clean up, and go to find my family, all of whom already know. Suddenly, the prospect of talking about this huge thing is terribly intimidating, and I hang back for a moment, talking to the safer friends who have come to find me, sticking close to Jamie, unsure what to say to them. But I am immediately enveloped in endless hugs, surrounded by family who are thrilled for us.
And the only thing I can think about is I have to find the Raisin. I can’t let anybody else tell her. I can’t let her find out from a random passerby. It’s too important. So I send Bonkles off to find her, and like the good sister she is, she immediately rushes off with her best friend on a Raisin seeking mission. I try to talk to our families, but I’m afraid that the Raisin will come down the stairs as I’m showing off the ring, and I can’t let that happen.
A few minutes later, I see Bonkles come sprinting down the stairs with a bewildered but excited looking Raisin. I drag her away from everybody else and, with a huge grin on my face, tell her what happens.
She flings herself on me and shrieks, her genuine glee entirely obvious. And then, I’m surrounded by my favourite people – my friends appear from all corners, hugging me, admiring the ring, talking over one another. I look around for a few missing faces – Bear, Canoe Girl, and others, but am swept temporarily up in the moment and in the relief that I got to tell the one person I most wanted to tell. After many hugs and a lot of squealing, I realise that we really really need to tell Bob. It seems only fair that if this huge thing happens in the middle of his concert, he should hear it straight from us. I told Jamie that he was going to get chastised for distracting a bell ringer at such a crucial interval, and Jamie just grins. We’re trapped by our families, though, and I’m desperately trying to get to Bob but being stopped every two seconds by somebody else. The Raisin, God bless her, wades into the piles of family, grabs me and Jamie by the hand, and pulls us away, waving to our families and explaining that we’re going to go and tell Bob. I pause for a moment to marvel at the fact that I have the most wonderful friends in the world, and thank every star in the sky for my Raisin and Diana. We giggle and squeak as we run up the stairs.
The minute we reach the third floor, I immediately see Bob. He’s hard to miss. I pull Jamie towards him – the Raisin, being the perfect friend, goes off to find me the few people I haven’t had a chance to talk to. I stand in front of Bob and inform him that Jamie must apologize for distracting me during the second half. Jamie gets a wonderful sheepish grin on his face and it’s at this point that I know quite how proud he is of his plan. Bob takes one look at our faces and grabs for my hand, and seeing the ring, gives Jamie the good natured hell he fully deserved for taking such a risk. He sweeps us up in a hug and congratulates us – both on the engagement and my ability to play handbells under extreme duress. He is so genuinely happy for us, as is everyone, that I am more grateful than ever before that this choir is a part of my life. This choir, that gave me the Raisin and Diana. This choir, that brought me and Jamie together after years and years of friendship. It is thanks to this choir and this man that I am the person I am today, and I know now that this was the perfect proposal. For six years, my life has revolved around this choir, and all the relationships that really matter to me are a result of it. It seems only fitting that the next great leap of my life should start here.
Stay tuned for more details, including a ring picture (I’m already accepting the fact that most people no longer want to see me, just my ring.) and all the hilarity of planning a wedding with my two hilarious, wacky, fabulous best friends and the most perfect man in the entire world.
I love you, Jamie. And I can’t wait to marry you back.
