Tall, blonde and handsome and I just celebrated our nine year anniversary last week, and after nine years, I still don’t think I’ve ever heard a better proposal story.  No offense.  I’m sure your proposal was very romantic and had you weak in the knees, but mine is still my favorite (in spite of the fact that it has to be my favorite).

The only thing I would change about it is that I would have showered at least two days before hand.  But live and learn right?  If you and your boyfriend have been talking for over a year about getting married, it’s probably not a bad idea to make sure and shower every day, you know, just in case…

But junior year winter finals were brutal:  I was taking 18.5 hours of my toughest classes, working 30 hours a week, and still writing and editing for the school paper.  I’d had three all-nighters in a row, and was surviving entirely off of the ramen noodles that my amazing roommate Mandy would heat up for me in our coffee-maker.  She and I had hardly gotten to spend any time together that whole semester, so we promised that as soon as our last final was over, and before we headed off for Christmas break, we’d have a roommate date.

My Spanish 4 final was intense, but thank God! it was the last one of the semester!  I walked back to my room after the 7 am final, collapsed on my bed, and slept for twelve hours straight.  I awoke to the first snowfall of the season fluttering down outside the window and Mandy rummaging frantically around in the room.  I got up, ready for us to have our girl’s night roommate date.  But she walked right out of the room!  A few minutes later, she returned, and I began to playfully guilt her into having our roommate date.  She was acting very strange and said she wasn’t going to be able to hang-out that night.  Mandy was a popular girl and I knew she’d have a lot of friends bugging her to hang-out one last night before break.  But she wasn’t one to squelch on a friend, so I feigned woundedness, knowing I could convince her to stay.  But she was insistent.

Moments later, there was a knock on our door.  It was Carrie, a dorm-mate from down the hall.  She said she had a Christmas candle her dad had sent her (big whoop) and she really wanted to show it to us (candles in the dorms were against the rules as a fire hazard).  I jokingly slammed the door on Carrie, telling her we were having a roommate date, but Mandy suddenly jumped up, ready to go see some silly candle.  Now I was feeling a little more genuinely wounded.  Mandy didn’t have time for our girl’s night, but she had time to go to Carrie’s room to look at a candle?!  The nerve!

Mandy started out the door, but I grabbed her by the arm, playfully playing hostage as I commanded her to stay for girl’s night.  Carrie began pulling both me and Mandy out the door with her.  With silliness fueled by total exhaustion, we wrestled down the hall until Mandy finally got me under my arms and quite literally dragged me, kicking and screaming, down the hall as she laughed at me all the way to Carrie’s room.

There was no Christmas candle.

There were two rows of candles.  And rose petals.  From the doorway leading to Carrie’s third floor balcony to the outside.  There was a song playing in the room, Love Songs, by Fleming and John.  Carrie had her video camera poised on me as Mandy told me to follow the path of candles.  I was completely disoriented, and had no comprehension for what they could possibly be up to.

That is…until I stepped out onto the balcony and down below…..was Lukus – guitar, amp and microphone next to him with a crowd of people standing behind him.

I was suddenly incredibly self-conscious about my messy hair and smudged up make-up from having just woken up from my nap-a-thon.  I wanted to freeze everyone else in the moment, run and take a shower, put on my favorite brown sweater and skirt, and emerge fresh and prepared for what I hoped was coming.  But Lukus started to play his guitar….

This was my shy Lukus, the same Lukus that wouldn’t look up at me to meet me two and a half years prior, the same Lukus who wouldn’t acknowledge me in any of his classes until the semester was half over, the same Lukus that had been afraid to ask me out, then to kiss me, was now, in front of a crowd of about 40 people right next to main entrance to the dorms, singing me a song he’d written for this moment.

I can’t help but love you, I was born this way I swear, True love burns with an intensity, too much for me alone to bear….

I stood in shock from the balcony as Mandy and Carrie simultaneously giggled and cried.  Lukus sang from his heart the lyrics he’d written just for me, with snowflakes gently falling, and the whole world (or what seemed like it) watching our story unfold.

And then I screwed it up.

Lukus came to a pause in his song.  It seemed like he’d forgotten the words, and I knew he was already really stretching his comfort zone.  And I was so anxious and nervous and wanting him to hurry up and get to the point, that in my loud-mouthed stupidity, I yelled “YES!!!”

Lukus chuckled and said, “Wait, let me finish the song.”  That was me, always trying to rush things, control things, have things go my way.  And that was Lukus, always slowing me down and getting me to think first with my brain instead of with my mouth.

He tried to start again, but couldn’t find his place, and simply said, “Aw, forget it!  Will you marry me?!”  As if he didn’t already have his answer.  But I gave my second, “YES!!!”  The crowd cheered and Lukus smiled that beautiful dimpled smile, and I took off sprinting back down the halls.

With Carrie and Mandy in my wake and trying to keep up with the video camera, I flew down the stairwells without caution or a coherent thought in my head.  Carrie and Mandy raced behind, attempting to get the exciting footage without throwing up from spinning down three of the longest flights of stairs I’ve ever known.

Once down the stairs, we raced down the hall full-speed, leaving student victims and their baskets of laundry strewn behind us.  We reached “The Fish Bowl”, the converging foyer of the four dorms, where Lukus and the massive crowd stood waiting.  I ran to him and jumped straight into his big, strong arms to kiss him while shouts, applause, cheers and “aw’s” reverberated throughout the room.

After an embarrassingly long kiss, he knelt down and slipped the ring onto my finger, and once again, we were surrounded with applause.  Carrie stood by taking interviews from the crowd with her camera.  We stood staring at each other when one of Lukus’ friends walked up and said, “Are you the guy that just proposed in front of the whole school?  Dude!” and gave him a congratulatory hug.  Within five minutes, we were the talk of the school, though we managed to slip away from the crowd to go celebrate over dinner.  All night, we overheard fellow students recounting “some guy just proposed to his girlfriend in front of the whole school!” from the adjacent booths as we anonymously ate our cake and grinned knowingly.

Fast forward almost a year later, and we were married during our senior year of college.  In spite of the horrible case of the flu and the worst rotten gas I’ve ever had that I got during our doomed honeymoon, in spite of the 749 fights we’ve had since over our ridiculous pride, in spite of all of our mistakes, inadequacies, stupid decisions and extra pounds we’ve put on, we enjoyed our nine year anniversary last week even more than the night of the best engagement ever.

It helps that I showered for our date this time.