First Came Love...

Then came... a whole lot more. One of my awesome girlfriends, Jenn, said that it would important to write down exactly how I feel about my engagement the day (or a few days after) it happens. Well...it's happening! :) I woke up this morning after one night's sleep since Bradley popped the question even though it was 2 days ago. Yup! No one told me I wouldn't sleep the night it happened so yesterday I was on what I like to call a 24-hour roll. This morning, while the birds chirp outside my window and the sun peers through the blinds, my left hand is a little heavier and me? I feel LOTS of things. I think this is what people call shock. This is why:

Bradley and I had planned this weekend since Valentine's Day. After a morning of brainstorming, I ventured onto Ticketmaster to get ideas for a V-Day present for the boo. As many of you know, we love an adventure! When I saw that Kevin Hart was going to be in Columbia, SC, I didn't even second-guess the purchase. I've now discovered this may be a problem and why maybe I need to start taming my credit cards. Ah well... in the great words of Drake (great words... really? lol) YOLO. Anywho, I wrapped it in a Run DMC shirt that matched Brad's new Jordans that I figured he would probably wear to the show and couldn't have been more thrilled when I saw his face as the ticket fell out the shirt. Since then the ticket had been on the fridge of his apartment as a friendly reminder that amidst all the busy-ness that the semester would bring, there would be a sliver lining... little did I know... I'd be wearing it! Eeeee!!!

Anyway, I was super excited about this trip in February but a lot would happen before then. By the end of February, I had been out of town what felt like every weekend. From one weekend to the next I traveled to San Antonio, Phoenix, Athens (for good times with Jeliz of course), and Greenville. In between, I scurried around Wilmington with my head cut off. I applied for a new job, after a little nudging from a great friend Sarah, got the interview and between weeks of marathoning for recognition events, I ended up getting the job in March and transition prep began. Our trip became an afterthought to some extent but it was definitely a milestone that we looked forward to refeuling us for the final weeks of school.

One of the many things I love about Bradley is that amidst all of this, he was super busy too but he never thought twice to say "Babe, I got this" when it came to the trip to Columbia. Chatting about the trip led to making it a trip to Charleston for the weekend. A city that we have only heard people rave about and have always been curious enough to visit. So in no time, ok so maybe I nagged a little, not because I wasn't sure he would get the trip together but more so because I wanted us to get the best value, plans were made and hotels were booked. Brad's a good man for dealing with that haha. So this weekend... we were off to Columbia for the show and on to Charleston.

The week prior to our trip, I started freaking out with Jojo and a little with my mom that my only anxiety about going away would be the fact that everytime Brad and I go away, we come back to a flood of expecting eyes waiting to see some new jewelry on my finger. Based on our conversations, B never led me to believe anything extraordinary would go on this weekend. We travel a lot and just wanted to get away. It was like any other vacay and in my head, I prepped myself for the ride back and wondered... what would it be like if I did not come back engaged? It was almost a temperature check for myself and you know what, I was perfectly happy with the idea of not coming back engaged. Not so happy about having to avoid the questioning eyes or the glimpses at my finger but that was everyone else's problem. This whole ride to engagement has been a happy one, not of anticipation or longing, just a little healthy dose of anxiety to get the ball rolling for a lifetime with my prince charming. Ok... enough with the gagging ladies. YOLO. (That's working out really well for me in this blog haha.)

So we get to Columbia and had an awesome time at our first comedy show together. We laughed so hard and quoted the show the whole way to Charleston. We checked into the hotel and in no time we were off to explore the city. Let's just say there's something about daquiri bars... I promise it only felt like I had a strawful of "Call-A-Cab" at Wet Willies and I could have gone back to Columbia and been the opening act for Kevin's next show! We sat next to some hooches who just turned 21 whose skirts did NOT pass the catholic school uniform check (skirt is no shorter than the length of your arms at your side...try it!). I mean I had nighties that are longer than those dresses. Anywho, we made the best of it and enjoyed our walk down the historic streets of Charleston plotting what we would do the next night.

The next day comes around and it's scattered showers and a little windy - I had to set the mood. With a fresh perm ladies, options to enhance the look I had for the day were limited explaining the craziness I am in the facebook pictures. We started the day with a lovely lunch in Magnolias where we looked around and aside for the huge painting of a hmm... black lady... I think we may have been the only people of color in the place. Ah well... Brad and I carried on as usual and created stories about how they must think we are celebrities. We do this quite often to push through awkward "only blacks" moments. Haha... but that's another story for another blog. After the party in our mouths because omg... moment of silence for the beauty of that cuisine...we took a long walk around the city. It was beautiful. The artwork, the histororical architecture, the steeples, fun shops, the market and our favorite... the swings on the dock. It started to rain so we headed to the car and decided to stop at no other place than the Tanger Outlets. I mean guys... yes we are in Charleston but we can never miss an opportunity to shop a little. Hand in hand we went through our favorite stores, fit clothes, admired bougie looks and reminded ourselves of our bank account status at the end of the month and only walked out with one bag each... of sale items. Just a typical laid back Saturday. We were headed to the car and B mentioned "Think Like A Man" was showing at 4:50pm and it would give us enough time to see it and get ready for dinner. The movie was hilarity and we laughed and laughed (me probably more boisterously) at every scene with Kevin Hart and walked away pretty content at how fun the movie was.

And so the night began. We got ready for our date night picked a location and we were on our way. It was still pretty drizzly unfortunately but we made the best of it, jamming to some old school jams on the Pandora station. Our first restaurant pick fell through so we headed to another snug place called SNOB - Slightly North of Broad. It said something about Mavericks which made me think of Elizabeth so I felt it was safe and again we were hit with a meal that melted our pallettes. In a good way of course. Now, many of you know that I can be really silly but I would have to say that this was one night that I was really silly. During dinner, I said to Brad, "I am my realest self with you. Hands down. I knew that when I could sing raindrops on roses at the top of my lungs in the shower while you were close by, there was no turning back." I know what you're thinking, sounds like the perfect line to begin a proposal but nope... I have epiphanies about how much I love Brad spontaneously all the time. Ask Lindsey, she probably has a file of random emails from me that simply say... "remind me when I'm mad at him how much I'm madly in love with him." So we continued with our dinner conversation which included recalling quotes from "The Most Interesting Man" and started coming up with really dumb "The Most Interesting Couple" ones. Didn't work out as well as, "He has inside jokes with strangers." LMAO... still funny... cracks me up everytime that Dos Equis man.

We left dinner trying to decide what our next plan of action would be. We went by a rooftop bar which turned out to be like Level 5 in Wilmington... at 5pm... only it was 11pm. Next! So we decided to head to the car after a romantic walk in the drizzle along the water in Waterfront Park. We were passing old homes and per usual I had a skip in my step as Brad held my hand and kept shaking his head at me with my silly comments. We get back to the car and we make our way back home when I suddenly have an awesome idea. Let's look up lounges that are close to our hotel! Brad, always up for an adventure, led the way. We are caught up with this jam session we're having in the car with all these old school hits on the R. Kelly Pandora Station and slowly starting to realize...umm... I think we just passed a store called "We Buy Ya'lls Gold." What kind of hoodery?! Ever so often when we drove through rough areas on this trip Brad would say, "Rims... more rims" to indicate we were probably not in the best part of town. But still we trecked on until Brad was saying "rims" like every second so we finally decided to head back to the hotel.

After being crampy all day, I was so excited to have cuddle tv time. So excited that it took me about a second to find my pajama shorts and get ready to cuddle up in a ball and watch SNL or let's be honest... sportscenter haha. Ladies, this is not a code word for anything but what I am saying. Honest. So I get to my shorts and Brad's like, "Babe, I don't think you're going to want to put those on right now." Let's just say I gave him a "No one tells baby what to do" kinda face and looked up to see Brad with a silver box in his hand. Instantly, the face of confusion crept on my face. After watching "Think Like A Man", I didn't know whether or not to feel excited about a gift or EXCITED about a GIFT. In the movie, this girl gets a blue velvet box that she believes to be an engagement ring, she starts tearing up, and then she opens it and it's a set of earrings. I was not about to go down like that so I walk over to Brad and I'm like "uhhh what's going on". He says, "Well babe, I was hoping to catch you off guard and it looks like I did." As you read, just insert a few of my gasps and "what's going on"s between what he says for my reactions lol. "I love you so much and I will love you forever" Brad says. Then he drops to one knee and I'm thinking "O-M-G! These are NOT earrings!!! This is REALLY happening! OMG OMG OMG". Ok so I may have said this out loud but I don't remember. Then of course, like a true gentleman he says, "Babe, will you marry me?" and with a resounding "Yes, Babe" I pulled him up from the floor and began to shriek. Somewhere there he got the ring on my finger but I don't even think I got a glimpse of it before I started started jumping up and down on the bed... like a little child. What on earth? Smh. I was in total shock and when I looked down at my finger all I could say was "This is perfect babe. Now tell me everything."

Brad then let me in on some prep he did for the night which I think is only best heard from him. I have to leave something for the wedding website haha. Either way, Brad had been walking around with the ring in his pocket the WHOLE night which later explained why I was on the same side of him for every picture we took. He got me. I had NO idea that it would be THE night. Here are a few things that threw me off everytime a question mark popped into my head...

• Nothing was planned to a T. Brad and I didn't know what we were doing for dinner until we got to dinner. There was no rush to get anywhere and no timeline. We were carefree like we always are with a sense of direction but no specific destination ahead.
• Confession: When we left the hotel room for dinnner, he went back in the room because he said he forgot his phone which I thought I saw the imprint of in his back pocket. He confirmed it was his wallet and I never saw an imprint of a weirdly shaped jewelry box anywhere in his suit when he came out. Not that I was looking...but I just wanted to confirm with myself that it wouldn't happen. Brad later told me that I grazed the box a couple times but I honestly couldn't tell at all.
• The weekend was like any other wonderful weekend away. I could tell Brad had planned in advance for little things like getting movie passes from his credit card points. For B, that's typical though. He likes to plan ahead but more off the whim where I like to plan with a little dose of anal-retentive where we discuss every step of what we are going to do.
• We talked about random wedding ideas throughout the weekend very spontaneously not like it was going to happen soon or anything, just randomly and much like we do all the time.
• Brad had packed a few of my things from his apartment in his luggage. When I asked for it, not like I was testing the waters or anything, he just told me to go in the bag and get it. So I figured he had nothing to hide at all. I was right - not this weekend.

Needless to say, Brad said that the one thing he wanted to do was catch me off-guard. That he did. According to him, he decided not too long ago that he would have done it this weekend but it wasn't the original plan. There were plenty more but my smart fiance said "noo boo boo, you would sniff any other plan out" plus, he had the ring for over a week and couldn't wait for our trip to NY in May. All in all it was perfect timing.

So how do I feel now? Over - The - Moon. It is all so surreal to me. The ring is breathtaking and my love for Bradley and his love for me is only something God could have created from scratch. I think a little about my Dad and what he would think and that's when my eyes begin to water. Daddy would have loved him, and probably does as he's looking down on me. Between Ayesha's tweet last night "I finally have a big brother" and Tinsley's reference to us as "two of the most amazing people I know", hearing that Sahiyya teared up when Brad skyped in to ask my mom last week, our students bumrushing Bradley at their meeting last night, and Brad's sisters calling me sis... all I can feel is numb to how huge this all is. I haven't seen a best friend in person yet and I wonder if that's when the tears will start flowing. Sure, have I been looking at wedding things and we have started to chat dates, but I sit here and think to myself... this is me... all of this... it's happening to me right now and I am so humbled that God chose me to be this happy with someone I am madly in love with... someone amazing who can love me at my most me-moments. Wow. It's a lot to take in right now but my heart is ready for this journey and ready to be Brad's companion for life. I have to add... JD are some pretty good initials too. Tehehee!