Step One: Get Engaged

It was never that I didn't want to get married. I just didn't think I would. Not out of some kind of anti-patriarchy or staunch feminist reasons - although, if I ended my life without having ever wed, those are definite reasons I would mutter with my last dying breath - it just didn't seem like something I would ever do.

For one thing, I was never one to play House with my friends. Actually, scratch that. I played House. Except I was the Dad, or the Dog. I was very good at being the Dog - lying under the tiny plastic table in the tiny plastic house, quietly observing everyone else reenacting the roles of Mom, Dad, Baby, etc. I feel like I still play the role of the Dog, in fact. But I was never eager to grow up and be "the Mom." Cooking dinner, cleaning, nagging Baby to do his homework. No, marriage, and the traditional gender role it seemed to presume, definitely wasn't for me.

Another handicap to the likelihood of my ever marrying is the fact that I'm not an easy person to be around. Most people don't like be shaken awake on Saturday morning to be told, "It's time to CLEAN!"
I prefer to function with no lights on, I have a strong preference for surrounding myself with weird quirky things, and I come with a large number of animals and have grand plans on acquiring more. I'm also not very social and I frequently speak to my dog through the magic and fun of song. Wherever I go, I leave a trail of bobby pins and chapstick in my wake. I like to come home from work and not talk. I like to rearrange the furniture when I can't sleep and/or when left to my own devices. I am prone to binging on CW shows when I am tired, upset, very cold, or slightly warm. There are other, more organized, nicer girls who do not spend Wednesdays nights lint-rolling dog hair off the couch.

Statistically speaking, as a more highly educated woman, I was more likely to wait longer to get married anyway. But not getting married at all did not seem like a stretch from that delay. I don't imagine a lot of people I knew in my early or mid 20s would have been surprised to run into me 20 years later to find out I had become the crazy lady with all the dogs and horses.

But when I hiked up Multnomah Falls and stood on the ledge, looking on while Brady rummaged around his Camelpak and pulled out a tiny box with the perfect ring in it and got down on one knee, it seemed like the most natural thing in the entire world to say yes.