Yes it's true (part 1)

I got engaged!

And some may think that my delay in posting all the details about this reflects my excitement on the mattter, but that is just not the case let me assure you :)

It was 3 weeks ago today, but the whole story began about 4 months ago. Crazy how much (but really how little) time has gone by!

I met Steve through my friend Andrea at the end of August. He is a photographer and has equipment that neither myself or Andrea has... and I was in need of some help for a wedding I was shooting. So I got his number and gave him a call out of the blue to ask if I could rent some camera equipment... all details of that aside, fast forward a week or so and we had started hanging out occasionally. He was a cool guy, and I could see him being a really good friend to me. I like friends, always good to find new ones :) right?

In the middle of September, I went to Vermont with Andrea and her two girls. My texting far surpassed any records I had previously reached that trip. I felt bad on the one hand that I was texting soooo much, seriously, how rude could I be? ;) But i didn't care at the same time. I was getting to know this guy and really starting to like him. We were connecting and joking and I was really enjoying having the "company" all the time :)

By the time we came back from Vermont, I was thinking that having a relationship with someone that was mainly via text message was totally unacceptable. I needed to hang out with him more, or not be friends. Because I didn't want to pour my time into something that wasn't real.

So hang out we did.

I was totally torn. Because as much as I didn't want to admit it, I was developing feelings for him and I had done this too many times before where the other didn't reciprocate that I just didn't want to go there again. So I convinced myself that I didn't like him. And that I needed to tell him so.

Thankfully, my mom, the voice of reason in my life, gave me sage advice telling me that I needed to make sure of my feelings before I went and told him I didn't have any. I could ruin a really good friendship...

I chewed on that for a day or so... And finally thought, who am I kidding? I totally like this guy. And it would totally break my heart to not have him in my life. I was done for...

But where was he in all of this? I had no clue how he felt. I thought that he was interested because of the amount of time he would spend talking to me over text and then when we would hang out etc, but in the back of my mind I kept telling myself that he probably talks to everyone just the same, and I'm just another girl blah blah blah.

Turns out I was wrong :) And I'm so glad I was

On October 5th Steve's grandpa died. When he told me, I asked him when the funeral or the calling hours were so that I could come show support. Turned out, the calling hours were for family only... but he would like if I could come... And it would be easier for us to go together because after the calling hours, there was the funeral, the burial and the wake. So it would make sense to just do it all. At first my mouth was just hanging open. I thought, are you kidding me? I just wanted to be there for you in any way I could, I didn't expect to be initiated into his family via a funeral, especially since neither of us had expressed feelings for each other.

Well, the day came and went and at the restaurant we had the wake at, his dad openly welcomed me into the family and said how happy he was that Steve and I were becoming such good friends.

In the back of my mind, I feel like this should have stereotypically freaked me out. But it didn't. I was so comfortable with everything. I was happy that his dad said that... it made me feel so wanted! And it also made me think that maybe I wasn't a crazy woman thinking that I had feelings he didn't share with me.

Later that evening we went for a walk and between the pounding in my ears and my absolutely dry mouth I said something like this, "so, your whole family thinks we're together..." to which he responded by saying something like, "well, I told them we were friends." At that point, I freaked out inside for about 10.2 seconds thinking WHAT THE HECK IS WRONG WITH YOU!?!? WE JUST SPENT THE WHOLE DAY TOGETHER AT A FAMILY FUNCTION AND WE'RE JUST FRIENDS?!?!?!!?!

I calmed down though enough to think more *ahem* rationally, and decided that if he wanted to talk to me about this, that he would. And i needed to just let it go.

Later on still, he asked me what I was going to be doing the next day for my birthday, and I told him that my mom and melissa were coming over and we were going for lunch and that was about it. He asked if I wanted to go to dinner to celebrate, so I said that yes, of course I would like that :)

Aaaall day long I wondered if this was a real date or if this was him just being a good friend. When he showed up that night with flowers and a birthday present, I was like umm, yes, this is a real date :)

to be continued...