Engaged

It seems marriage is in the air – and kinda quick! My assistant came to work the other day with a new engagement ring. And another coworker is very pregnant (and engaged). It didn’t take either of them long after meeting their beaus to get to that point.

 

Me? It’s been 2 years and 5 months with this fella, and no ring in sight. And I can’t bring myself to care about it an awful lot, because we’re happy. We recently bought an expensive bed together – I figure that’s a pretty big commitment (I mean, besides the one where we’ve been sharing a home and a life for 2 years). Sometimes I think about the romance of engagement, and the status of being a wife and having a husband, and I think I might want those things again. But I’m a very practical person, and my practical side grimaces a bit at those things. It isn’t that I’m not committed or think that he isn’t, so much as I know that things just end sometimes. And while I’m not sitting around just waiting for that to happen, I know it’s a possibility (two divorces will do that to you). The ending is a lot less tricky when the law’s not involved. And besides: he hasn’t asked me.

 

I get ads online for pretty rings all the time. I’ve actually thought of buying one just to treat myself. But then I think: I probably need to buy a new washing machine first. And stuff for the yard. And figure out things that are going to start costing me when the youngest starts college soon. So I just look at them longingly and close the tab.

 

I’m engaged with my life: with my sons, with my dogs, with home and career. I’m engaged in a largely satisfying relationship without needing more labels just yet. I’m engaged with friends and activities and all kinds of things. After a year of withdrawal from many things, I’m re-establishing my connections. And at the moment, it’s all the engagement I need.