An Important Purchase

When he put this on his hand yesterday, I think it was probably one of the more significant moments in this whole wedding-planning process that I've had so far. Even something as simple as trying on, getting fitted for, and buying wedding bands was enough to really overwhelm me in a good way. I wonder if how I felt looking at Cliff with a band of white gold around his finger is how my mom felt when I tried on a veil for the first time, or how my dad felt when he and I did a trial-walk down the chapel aisle to see if it would be wide enough for us to walk down, or even how Cliff felt when I put this on. It's crazy, really. So many people and things and moments are involved in this process, this marriage, this life we're preparing for and a ring holds within it all of those things, those moments, and those people.

A tiny grey box is hiding within a slightly larger maroon box somewhere in my room with a simple piece of metal that means much more than you realize until you make the investment. It's a symbol, and a highly desired one at that. The second I bought it, Cliff asked if he could go ahead and wear it. As I reprovingly scolded him for such a thought, something inside of me was pleased - pleased to know that the feeling I got when I saw him on was somehow comparable to the feeling he got when wearing it. Marriage is something I am still so surprised to find myself preparing for; sometimes when I see other people my age who are single and not dating anyone or other people who are older, much wiser, and single - I think about what it means to get married at the age of twenty-three with still so much ahead in both our lives.

I'm not scared or afraid - I have never once had my doubts. It is still sobering, though, to think about the reality of what marriage truly is and how much it changes your life as it is merged with another's. I remember the look on my dad's face when I had to tell him, earlier than I expected him to find out, that Cliff and I were soon to be engaged. I remember him reminding me how young I am, how much we have left to grow, how much of a mistake someone could make it getting married too early. It was easy to understand where he was coming from, and also easy to respond with the lessons I've been learning my whole life about what marriage is and isn't, should and shouldn't be, mostly by observations in my homelife. I am a product of a broken marriage and have been the bystander in several others; I do not rush into this blindly, if anything, I spent a good portion of my life hiding from the possibility of ever really finding and growing in love.

But when I think about that ring I will slip onto Cliff's hand in a little more than four months, I think about the commitment, the process of giving, and the strength of love that are required of me and that I am capable of... that are all unending as the shape of metal it is made of and the Love that has always guided us. And he will, everyday for the rest of our lives, wear a reminder of the promise I make to him on our wedding day.

All that to say... I think I just made the most important and meaningful purchase of my life, yesterday.