Hardware (Part Two)

By April I felt confident that DJ knew my opinion about potential engagement rings. We’d looked at it twice in the store and the jeweler wrote it down.


In late April I visited my sister and parents in eastern Washington (state) for a weekend, leaving DJ home in Bozeman by himself. The next Friday night we were getting ready to go out, and he’d had a couple of whiskey’s (he’s a total non-drinker during the week, but will have a few on a Friday night), which sometimes makes him a jabbermouth (jabber jabber jabber).

So we chatted along as I got ready, and DJ stumbles around to a question about the engagement ring I want. I can’t even remember which particular element of it he was uncertain about, but I do remember being a little bummed that A) if he wants to know my preference on said element, he must not have bought a ring last weekend; and B) dude, we we wrote this stuff down. Read your notes!

So I gently said, well, if we need to go look at the ring again this weekend, we can. And like an excited schoolboy with a secret (really, he’s about ten years old at heart) he stood straight up and shook his head no, no we couldn’t go look at the ring again. Confused (and laughing at this endearing trait he has), I asked him why, and he said “well, let’s just say I might have some store credit…”

I commenced the excited dance inside, while hopefully remaining calm on the outside.

But he still had questions about a certain element, so, like any good woman, I sketched out the ring I wanted for him, with details. What!? That was too much? Hey, I knew what I wanted; DJ knew the size and quality of the stone were up to him. (I wonder what has happened to that sketch?)

May came and went, and only an overwhelming workload cancelled out my anticipation for getting engaged. Sometime during this month I told DJ that I wanted at least a year to plan a wedding, so you know, no pressure or anything. DJ, I think about this time, responded that he wouldn’t be able to afford any hardware until the end of the summer. I can’t lie, at the time I hoped he was lying to me to throw me off.

In early June I looked at our summer schedule and flipped out a little (and wrote this post). Friend’s and a cousin’s wedding, work obligations, and people visiting had essentially filled our entire summer schedule. We had only two weekends open between June 1 and mid-September. When was DJ going to have time to pop the question???

By July first I vacillated between anxiety over the wedding planning we’d have to do after he actually proposed, and a sadness that he hadn’t actually proposed yet. Again, the girl in me, who usually stays buried behind the four letter words and a masculine lack of patience, came out. Waiting actually was really hard for me. And to this day I can’t say why, only that the longer I waited the less enthralled I got. I kept reminding myself that I didn’t want DJ to spend money he didn’t have, we were very busy and I wouldn’t have time to plan anyway, and I wanted him to propose in his own time.

Frankly, I wasn’t exactly a picture of patience.

Over the 4th of July we took a roadtrip and I was hopeful. Nope. The next weekend we drove out to the lake for two days there before going to my cousin’s wedding in Colton. During that 5.5 hour drive we discussed how different my upcoming cousin’s wedding would be from ours. I secretly hoped he’d proposed at the lake in the next two nights… until he flat out told me he wasn’t going to. Again, I can’t lie; I teared up. We talked through it, but I was disappointed. Especially on Saturday night when mutual friends of ours and my cousin kept saying “you two should just get married”… Thanks Jon, because I wasn’t already aware that we’re not engaged.

Somewhere on the drive back to Bozeman after that wedding I let it go. I had a lot of other things to focus on, and I decided that if we weren’t engaged by October 1 we’d have a serious come to Jesus. But until then, I’d try to keep my mouth shut about it.

In late July I went back out to the lake to help my mom paint the house. She and I talked about wedding stuff, pros and cons of different locations, vibes, dresses, etc. But I couldn’t really jump too far into it without a ring. I’d started a spreadsheet… but wasn’t going too much farther.

In early August DJ’s mom came to visit. And the next week I hosted Katie's bachelorette partybefore going to her wedding. I think right before her wedding (no, really, like in the parking lot five minutes before the ceremony started) DJ sold the condo. The whole weekend I kept getting questions about when we were getting engaged. I grit my teeth, reminded myself of the October 1 vow, and reminded myself that I could busy myself with the house we were going to build.

By Sunday night though, with the combination of exhaustion, hangover, and work stress, I was kind of a mess. A case of the sniffles took over, and I cried to DJ that I felt a little ridiculous picking out floorplans and talking to the builder of our house without any hardware. He comforted me, said all the right things, and apparently wasn’t scared off by the crazy girl crying on his shoulder.

I went to work on Monday feeling a little ridiculous about my outburst, but actually a lot better about the whole situation. That week was taken up my housebuilding discussions, planning and condo-selling. And in my mind I’d figured that DJ would probably propose while on our upcoming Oregon trip.

Dun Dun Dun...