How do you know he’s the one? My strange but true engagement story.
I’m coming up on my 20th year with my partner, we’ve had good and hard times. We’ve made mistakes, loved, argued, danced and retreated. All of that in the roller coaster of life and a relationship that’s lasted more than half of mine.
Every once in a while I’m asked about how we met, how we got engaged all those years ago, how I knew he was the one.
You may think it’s a bit crazy, but there are definitely two witnesses to this story, he will swear by it too.
We’d been dating for a year, he was 5 years older than me. I was 19.
We were actually having a little fight, on a hike in the rockies near Banff. We were deciding if we go all in, or end it.
We were sitting at the end of Lake Minnewanka, sitting and pondering.
These words had been shared. Truth and the future hung over us — suspended in a cloud of suspense, hope and disparity all intertwined together.
I closed my eyes and prayed…in the deepest faith of my christian upbringing.
“If he’s the right one for me to marry, he won’t be able to leave this spot without asking me to marry him.”
Literally, I prayed that. (silently of course, in my head, he had no clue, I’d never done anything like that before.)
I wanted a sign and I put that out there, that if we left that spot without him asking me to marry him, it was going to be over.
So we sat. He chuckled, and sighed and after an eternal 10 or 15mins, we got up silently and started walking back to the parking lot.
Tears rolled down my cheeks and I was resolute in my decision and resigned to the fact that we were over.
That was it.
And then we stopped on a little bridge on the way back to the car. The one we’d been to before and always loved watching the water rapids flow below.
He turns to me and says,
“You know back there at the end of the lake, I had this really strange thing happen to me.
I was sitting there, and I was trying to stand up, and I physically couldn’t stand up.
My legs were locked
They wouldn’t move. So I tried harder, I squirmed and laughed a bit because it was so weird.
And then the thought came into my mind that I can’t leave this spot until I ask her to marry me.
But that seemed weird, so I made a deal with my mind and my legs, that if I got this feeling again, on the bridge — I’d know that we were meant to get married.”
So, he told me this, and then he asked me, would you want to get married?
And I smiled, teared up again, feeling especially connected to the universe and and the bigger plan and shared my side of the story.
Yep, that really happened.
That story helps, helps remember there is more involved in our lives than we realize, helps me when we’re going through a hard time, helps me remember there’s help available if we ask. I can’t argue with what happened physically and intellectually — it was an undeniable experience that helped shape my life.
And it inspires me to ask again, ask and trust. When I don’t know what path to follow and I want an undeniable answer that I won’t be able to question, regret or refuse.
What could you ask for right now? What does this story bring up for you? Have you had an experience like this? Please do share, maybe there’s someone out there that needs to hear it.
