The Engagement Story!

Every morning driving to school I have a reason to smile now, because I pass underneath Jackson Street Bridge, the view of the city skyline rising before me, sky turned pink, orange and blue by the early morning light and rising of the sun.

I'd always been fond of this view, but now especially I feel I have a reason to. 

I can't help but feel a sense of awe at God from bringing me to Atlanta. I almost didn't make it - I can count dozens of times where, if something in my life had happened differently, I wouldn't be here. If I hadn't done gymnastics - I wouldn't have homeschooled. If I hadn't homeschooled - I wouldn't have gone to Smith Prep. Or gone to summer camp. Or chosen to move to Georgia. If I had decided to choose UCF's PT program when they called me in April 2014, I would have bypassed my chance to go to Mercer. I would never have gone to Atlanta. I would have never started dancing. 

If I never moved to Georgia and started face painting, I wouldn't have found myself at a park in November in 2012 face painting for the Atlanta Cabbagetown Chomp and Stomp. A park which, coincidentally, Kris Mason happened to pass by on this same exact date, and saw my friend Crystal and I dressed like gypsies face painting. (Which I just think is funny).

Last week on my birthday was the most wonderful day I've ever had. Kris told me to come right to his place when I got out of school, and told me I should wear a nice dress. The weather was beautiful and only slightly windy. Every year on my birthday, I make a list of unusual things to complete - eat something I don't normally do, write a letter and leave it for a stranger, leave 22 pennies in 22 random places, jump in a pool with all my clothes on... and this year, a new addition, sign my name on the Jackson Street Bridge, which since summer had become Kris Mason and I's favourite spot after he had shown it to me one starry night. 

Obviously, any gal is going to think that her boyfriend has something special planned if he tells her to come straight home and wear her favourite dress on her birthday. What could it be? Surprise photos? Flowers? A letter? I couldn't really wrap my head around it, but Kris had been throwing out hints for a week, much to my dismay. He'd thrown out enough hints to convince me that is wasn't an engagement ring, however, that I knew better than to get my hopes up. I had badgered him about my mysterious gift all week though (not that he was budging). By the time my birthday came around though, I was so excited about the day in general that now knowing what my gift was yet was ok. There was one hint he had given away though: we'd be going to sign the Jackson street bridge at sunset. 

Kris drove me to Acapella first to buy me a new book - one of the first items on my list, and all the while I was throwing pennies out the window and everywhere I could find to get rid of the 22 of them I had in my dress pocket. While we were there, I left my letter in a book because I was worried leaving it outside would result in it blowing away. 

We left Acapella after finding a book and then Kris drove me to Krog Street market. I was surprised there was a place on that side of town that I hadn't been to (I'm very fond of the Inman Park area). Another item on my list was trying a beer I'd never tried before. I tried to pay for our beers but Kris insisted that I wasn't going to pay for anything on my birthday. 

"We have some extra time," he said as he smiled and we sat down. "It's not sundown yet". 

I saw a lady behind us looking at us, all dressed up that we were. She was talking with a man and sipping her beer. She gave us the sweetest smile as we sat down, which I don't think Kris caught, but it made me happy because I felt like my life was better than a fairytale right now. Honestly, I was just happy to spend my birthday with Kris. It was really all I'd wanted to do all day since I'd woken up.

All the while, Kris was texting someone but not letting me see who, leading me to think there would definitely be pictures. I'd told him I wanted to get a picture on the bridge for us to frame earlier that week, and he had smiled so sweetly and told me we would definitely be able to get one that I thought maybe he was just going the extra mile with that item on my birthday list. 

While we were sitting down, I was sipping a beer in my right hand while my left was in my lap. I usually wore rings on my left hand because my right hand fingers were smaller, and I had unfortunately lost quite a few rings due to them slipping off my right hand through the years. I was wearing a ring that Crystal had given me from her trip to Italy earlier that year, and Kris slipped it off, which should have (obviously) been a big hint to me, but me having just drank an 11% alcohol beer didn't really get the hint. Kris took my beer away and I took my ring back. "No fair," I told him, as I put it back on my hand.

It was time to leave. There was one more thing on my list before Jackson Street bridge - get some Recees Pieces. Kris took me by a gas station and bought me some, and then we parked by Condesa Coffee in the parking garage to walk over to Jackson Street bridge. The sky was turning bright orange with the sunset as we walked across the streets filled with traffic. I was so happy I was practically skipping, my heart fluttering with happiness and anticipation with what my gift could be. Kris held my hand in the meanwhile and we walked across the street, and finally we were at the bridge. I went to look around but he put his arm around my shoulder and said, "Look at how beautiful it is!", while directing my view towards the skyline And indeed, the view was beautiful, as the sun glistened off of the building tops and it felt like all of Atlanta stood before me in its shining glory, Freedom parkway snaking underneath and blending into the Interstate. We walked to the very center of the bridge and Kris hugged me closely. "Right here," he said. He started talking about when he first took me to Jackson Street bridge - how he had promised to love me always - I was hardly listening, because by then it was obvious to me what this was going to be, and I could hardly breathe from nerves. I can't even remember the rest of what Kris said, especially as he started moving his arm from off my back and stepping away as he said, "so with that..." I looked at him and held onto his arm so as to say don't go, if you do my life will change forever, and next thing I know, Kris was on one knee and reaching into his jacket pocket, and I was thinking about a billion things at once, mostly due to the fact that a person in this situation doesn't really know what to do. There's not really a social guidebook. 

No, all I really remember from what Kris said before we got engaged was the most important part:

Him as he asked with the biggest smile on his face, "Will you marry me?"

I feel that I'd always known the answer to that question since I had met Kris, but me trying to verbalize the answer came out so softly I could hardly hear it, because all I could whisper was "yes", supplementing my lack of words with a nod of my head.
It didn't matter to me though, because that felt like a moment where words didn't matter. I was so distracted with clinging to him and hugging him that I didn't even notice what the ring now on my finger looked like, or the fact that our friend Elizabeth Day (the mysterious person Kris was texting) was taking pictures. All I could think about was how changed my life was from what it had been. How I had spent years of sorrow and upset chasing after the wrong people who hurt my heart and whose hearts I'd hurt, too. People who, no matter how hard I tried to fix our relationship, would never be right for me the way Kris had always been without even trying. It was one of those moments in your life where you finally realize what God was trying to tell you all along when he put you through all the things he did.
All the tears I shed in 2014 as I had bid someone I'd dated for 5 years goodbye, and all the struggles with it I had faced all the way up until 2015 before I met Kris, even. The depression. The falling asleep feeling alone, the waking up sad, the tearful car rides to and from school, the almost failing my second and first semester because I couldn't let go of the past. The hurt felt like my penance for the wrong I had done. The leap of faith it had been to move to Atlanta completely alone, not a friend in the world or someone by my side. All the aimless dating - the feeling bored, feeling like people only understood part of me, questioning after nearly a year whether or not I actually even loved the people or person I claimed I did - not knowing what it was supposed to feel like to know who the right person was but being scared. Scared of the uncertainty. Scared I'd mess up and pick the wrong person.

And then Kris walked into my life one hot summer evening, and my life would never be the same. He took all of my fears and my paranoia of finding the wrong person and took them away forever. He showed me that living a life beating myself up for the hurt I'd caused was doing a disservice to myself. For the first time with any human being, I let him know everything - I even let him read every single one of my journals chronicling years and years of my life through my best and darkest moments. Every hurtful secret, tearful goodbye, shameful moment - he knew it all and then what's even more remarkable, instead of turning around and leaving, he embraced me even more for it. He assured me that he wasn't going to go anywhere and he proved it. He actually wanted to spend time with me - wanted to talk with me - wanted to know either all of me or none at all. So I let him know it all, because something told me that was the right thing to do. Kris embraced everything about me - my devotion to school and to work with being a distraction, and more importantly the love I so desperately wanted to give, the belief I desperately wanted to have in someone being the one for me, the someone that finally wouldn't hurt me - he showed me that that person could exist where before I thought that all you could do was settle for someone who only met some of your hopes. Kris met every single hope of mine and more. I never felt like God had made someone just for me, but with Kris... I felt like this was exactly what God was bringing me to all of these years. And loving him and being loved by him: it's effortless. All the times I felt like giving up, God was whispering, just wait. Soon I'm going to bring the two of you together, and you'll understand everything. Trust me and hold on a little longer.

It brings tears to my eyes to think about all of this, and it took me a week to right this because I had to let my emotions settle first. I'm not the kind of girl to jump on board right away with things. I carefully weight everything and then weigh it more.
But Kris came into my life, and I realized that it didn't matter if I'd dated him for months or for years - this was the man that God intended me to love and be loved by. He was the One. The exact picture of the kind of man I'd always hoped I could marry but never thought I could fine. And it was so obvious that all the doubts I'd ever felt with people before were gone - and those doubts seem so silly when I see that now I don't have a single doubt at all.

Because when you find the right person, it's clear as day.

I still can't believe it, it hardly seems real that last week we got engaged and now I'm planning a wedding for May. But I'm the happiest person in the world. All those old memories I have feel as though they were lived by someone else, and ever since I met Kris I've finally felt free. Free to move on and live the kind of life God promised me I could have. To live in the happiness that is knowing that you entrust everything you are with a person that never hesitates to do the same with you.
As we stood on top of that bridge last week, I was thinking all of these things. And while some of it still doesn't feel real, I know this:
I love Kristofer Mason more than anything in the world, and I am so happy and blessed that I get to spend the rest of my life with him. 

Glad for the Unknown.

I think frequently back to my last couple of weekends prior to learning that I had been accepted to Mercer's PT program. It was a very difficult time in my life for me, but I was doing my best to get myself out and around Macon and enjoy myself. I had grown to love Macon, and all its nooks and crannies. Macon was a place of comfort for me. It was where I lived. It was where I worked. My friends were there, my business, and I had all of my favourite places. Coffee shop: check. Walking Rose Hill Cemetery and the flooded, poorly made trails around the Ocmulgee. Kroger was a familiar, welcoming place. Traffic was never crowded - the gas was cheap - and Mercer and Wesleyan's campus made wonderful walks. The library downtown was my happy place.

What could be better?

Back then, I didn't think I was going to get into PT school that year. So what if I I just took a year off? Or... a few? I was tired. Maybe I just needed a break. Maybe I just needed to enjoy my youth. Recover from the hardships of that year. It wouldn't be so bad.
And so I was happy to receive an interview for an Admissions Counselor position at Wesleyan College, as well as an interview for a pharmaceutical sales rep for Quintiles. I'd be a good sales rep for Diabetes medications - I mean, I know a lot about them. Both cushy positions that could allow me to still live in Macon. I didn't want to leave! Macon was home. 

As I prepared a date for my Quintiles interview and sat in the interview seat for a counselor position, I could really believe what I was telling myself when I thought that this was the best move for me. Yes, I was worried - what if I didn't get into graduate school? How much harder was it going to be to re-apply? What was it going to take for me to make myself stand out in applications next year - what more could I do than what I had already done? I had decent grades, I had the volunteer time, but I was young, and my experience in PT was only so-so.
Maybe PT wasn't even right for me.

My life was full of questions.
Then one night after the counselor interview and the day before my Quintiles interview in Atlanta, I received a call. It was from David Taylor from the Mercer PT program.
"Congratulations. We'd like to extend you acceptance to our program for Fall."
I couldn't hide my shock. "Oh my gosh...really? Wow. Ok. Wow." I probably sounded like a babbling idiot. But if Dr. Taylor knew all of the things going on in my life at the time - at how little solid stuff I had to grab on to - and how much he'd just shifted my life again, maybe he'd understand.

And just like that, my life suddenly became scarily solid as I prepared for a move.
There would be no job.
No more interviews.
No familiarity.
And no more Macon.

My life was thrust from familiarity to living in a place with no friends, no family, no one. Nothing familiar.
And it was terrifying at the time. You know? It still is, sometimes. Sometimes I stop and think and then realize that it's like walking on a narrow bridge and forgetting how high up you are until you look down.
My life could no longer be cushy and familiar. Now it's hard and there's new experiences every day in this great big city of lights and traffic.
It matches my ambition, I've found.

And while the road hasn't been easy, some days I look back on that time in my life when I was considering all these endless choices and I think....

I'm so glad I decided not to stay in Macon and be an admission counselor. (And there's nothing against that job at all, truly. I admire how hard those people work.) But looking back, I realize that  that was a role that was never meant for me.
We're all meant for different things, and I'm glad that part of that role for my life meant being a part of something not comfortable and familiar at all - but exciting and unknown.