I’m a bit late updating this, so apologies to those for whom this is not news. After months of nervousness and considerable poverty, I surprised Trina with a white gold diamond engagement ring. I’ll try to get a photo here soon! I guess there are no excuses for not going into harrowing detail, so here goes…
It was absolutely nerve wracking. I had resolved to ask her at midnight on New Year’s Eve – a gesture toward the future. However, because of the cost, I was counting it as a Christmas present, which meant I had to provide ‘fake’ presents on Christmas, and bluff my way until New Year’s. To my shock, Trina had booked me a week in New York for New Year’s – or more accurately, to celebrate my friend Leagh’s birthday with her in New York, with Anna and Sarah attending also, since it has become sort of a tradition to combine her party with New Year’s.
This meant I was provided with ample opportunities to pull off a romantic, cheesy proposal; I considered delaying the proposal until some moment in the trip, perhaps skating in Rockerfeller Centre or aboard a helicopter. I’m glad I didn’t! We didn’t get to skate and the chopper guys had us strapped in extremely well (read: tightly) – and fitted with noise-canceling, question-preventing ear muffs.
Instead, some quick planning with my wonderful girls – and a brief foray into the well-below-freezing night with Leagh’s housemate Martin – and I had cooked up the plan; to propose on the roof-top of Leagh’s apartment building in Queens. The view extended from Downtown to Central Park, with all the landmarks resplendently lit for the occasion; the buzz of the crowd from Time Square was audible across the East River. Right then, nothing could go wrong! Well, after the planning was done, the nerves set in. No pressure, just a moment to be recalled for the rest of your life! I’m not sure if the girls helped or not by making me perform my party pieces – which on the night amounted to mumbled, frightened renditions of Elton John’s ‘Rocket Man’ and The Pussycat Dolls’ ‘Don’t Cha’ in UltraStar
As midnight approached, I asked Trina if I could show her something; This question was almost as hard as the question, since she almost invariably responds to such requests with ‘no’ or ‘why?’ or a brief chuckle. To my relief she agreed, and within a minute or so we found ourselves in the biting cold, overlooking a borough full of 3 million revellers, almost none of which as desperate for the moment to come than I. Aware of the time, I pointed out the landmarks I recognised to tick away a few seconds… Empire State Building, the UN, Chrysler Building, Central Park, the eerie glow of Time Square. Trina was impressed, as awestruck by the glittering of ‘the capital of the world’ as I had been, but clearly confused as to the purpose of being frostbitten whilst awestruck. Before I knew it, the previously unseen gang on the roof of a building down the block began roaring the count down, 10, 9…
At the stroke of midnight, I endured the briefest of celebratory kisses before assuming that subservient, pleading position, and blurted out a few words of pure emotion that were I think lost to the cold air – with me on one knee, ring extended like a religious offering, I think Trina might have suspected now what was coming next and simply ceased to function, and myself, I honestly can’t recall them, brief as they seemed before…
‘Will you marry me?’
There are a few times in ones life where eternity is distilled into a second, and a dozen thoughts race through your mind before a breath is taken. ‘Yes’? ‘No’? ‘What’? Whatever delay there was in reality, it seemed like minutes for me, and I was for the first time certain of a refusal.
‘Yes’.
Yes? Yes! Kisses, blurs, hugs, speechlessness interspersed with rambling monologues – the rest of the night seemed to play at fast forward, in contrast with that second. We re-entered the party to an unnerving uneasy silence; Martin had decided to give the girls a miniature heart attack by telling them the proposal didn’t go well – but the ring was spotted, shrieking ensued and champagne was popped, tea was made, and the year began like a blurry metro train. Mind you, I suspect that simile might have something to do with it involving an actual blurry metro train to Verdant Avenue, all of us in Sarah’s 2009 glasses and hats listening to a Dominican singing en Espanol.
The night slowed, and we found ourselves beside a fireplace, warming our icicle hands. I bade farewell to my co-conspirators, before racing away across the the Queensboro Bridge to collapse into bed like a wilted balloon with my wonderful, beautiful, shell-shocked fiancee.
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Tags: anna, engagement, leagh, new york, sarah, trina, wedding