Last night Allison called me, we chatted for a while, like we had done on Monday and Tuesday nights also. Yet something wasn't quite right, she seemed a little distracted and I wasn't sure why, so I asked her if she was ok. Then she came out and said it...
"Will you become engaged to me?"
As I said previously, a big heart-beat jumped out of my chest and reverberated around the rest of my body... I was stunned. We'd talked previously about wedding dresses and living together, but when she came out and said it, it still managed to shock and thrill me. In legal terms, at the moment it's just an agreement between me and her and a display of out love since we can't legally get married, and yet in terms of personal commitment, to me it means as much as if it were a "normal" relationship. In as much, I'm still somewhat worried, we are far apart and my presence here in the US is dependant on my visa and thus an ongoing job. I even had the thought "But I'm too young to be engaged" and yet today I turned 27, and yet I still have some fear and I know not why. Our love is strong, we want to be together and in time we will be. I worry that we haven't been together long enough, that our ideas of each other are coloured by the long distance relationship. We love, we fight, we love again, we are still in the honeymoon period and so many other cares swarm around me. Yet I know that I love her and she loves me, with a care and an intensity which I can hardly believe to be true... and yet it is.
I suppose this is a way of showing our commitment to each other, and our hope for the future.
The last night's entry was hard to write. I spent many hours lying awake in bed unable to sleep thinking as one does when ones birthday comes around again, thinking of life and love.
It's been a busy day. I got up, read the paper and then headed over to the lab to check things out and read my email. I had a quick chat with my boss, and then, determined to take at least one day off (I worked most of Saturday) I came home. There was a big Street Carnival called "Calle Ocho" which is a celebration of all things Central/South American, and so I caught the metrorail over to have a look.
The Festival itself sprawled for more than twenty blocks along 8th Street, however after walking about fifteen blocks I saw that it was mostly a repition of the same thing, stages for musical acts (mostly extremely loud big bands), countless "traditional" food stores selling the same food or beer, touristy style shops selling trinkets and other useless junk. It was a very hot day, and I was extremely glad that I'd worn some sunscreen, though not quite enough. The street was amazingly crowded, and the organizers said that they expected over a million people to attend the day, so on my way back to the station, I took a parallel street to avoid the crush. I came home and crashed out for a few hours nursing the spots which had gotten a little too much sun.
It's interesting, here the gorgeous tan is worshipped above all, and on Saturday at the Uni, there are endless girls and guys lazing about trying to get brown. Maybe it's because I'm Australian and know about the lack of an ozone layer, or perhaps it's the idea of having skin cancers burnt off in twenty years, or my gothic leanings, or the fact that I burn so easily. Whatever it is, being pasty is fine by me.