A 4AM Proposal
I’ve been somewhat of an insomniac since I moved here to Denver. When I was living on the East coast I didn’t always sleep so well, but here it’s like a plague I have managed to infect Don with-I feel like my constant worrying in the crux of where the night meets morning has somehow infected him. I used to be able to sit quietly staring into space, trying to think my way out of my own worry.
We have been waking up at 4 or 4:30 for what seems like months now-usually one of us will start some conversation about something that is bothering us. The thoughts swirling in my head during that time of the night are sometimes collaborated with what I see on the news-the allure of being able to check news stories in bed at any time too much for me to sit in the dark trying to hold back the tears.
We’re poor, but we’ve been poor for the past two years together. Lately it’s like a monster on my shoulders as I avoid Sallie Mae and their requests for payment on $40k I am somehow expected to chip away at making $10 an hour. I then think of the taxes I haven’t filed, and the taxes Don hasn’t filed and it has a chokehold on my life, suffocating out any hope. I sometimes let myself dream of winning the lottery and how quickly I could make things better with like $50k. Everything shitty would be washed away.
Yesterday morning I felt Don rustling up against my neck as we were laying there, not exactly sleeping-me steeped in worry, par usual. Then I hear the whisper, “Marry me, ok?” I have told him yes a million times before but we just don’t have money for a ring. Hell, right now we have $20 in our account, no savings, no nothing and I have spent $20 in the past ten days, too. He kept pulling me closer with mutterings about me being the perfect, sexiest woman for him. I mean, yeah, right? I told him yes, obviously I am going to marry you! Haha-Fast forward a few hours later and he wants to shout to the world we are getting married. I mean, yeah, we’ve been telling people this for quite some time now. I just figured we wouldn’t tell anyone about it for sure until we realized we could have a wedding.
It’s almost impossible to be romantic when you’re poor. We haven’t gone out for a nice dinner in over a year (we do Pho often at our usual Vietnamese place, but that’s it). I told him I didn’t need a ring to promise to marry him, and though it might not be that perfect proposal I see so often on Facebook, illustrated with pictures and cute caption bubbles, we are now a team, a united front if you will. I always wondered what it would be like to be proposed to, and though it was 4 AM and done usually during a time of rough reflection, maybe I can embed that good memory over all of the memories of suffering and worry I usually endure, ALONE at 4 AM. Now someone wants to take care of me, for once.
And hey, whenever we can afford it, I can pick my own ring!
