How We Met
Ross and I became best friends in the 8th grade. He was and is the one man I could tell anything to. It all started when he began dating my friend and I was dating his. We both were all broken up at this moment for whatever reason (you know how 8th grade is), and our other halves decided to make us jealous by pretending to date each other. Ross suggested we try and do the same… I said “no” of course, thinking that was ridiculous, but he told me that moment, where the possibility of even pretending to date me, that was the moment he started liking me, and truly never stopped.
Myself, on the other hand, took a bit longer to come around…He sat around and watched me date others for years, while he (not-so) secretly waited for his time. He constantly would tell me how much he liked me, but he was my BEST FRIEND! I was so worried about what would happen to our friendship if it didn’t work out, but I was also terrified about what would happen if it did…
Our senior year of high school he finally made the move and sent me on a scavenger hunt throughout our hometown, where at the end he was waiting and asked me to be his girlfriend. That was November 2010. I knew from the start he was not like the other guys, he was always my kind of marriage material, which is scary to realize when your a teenager, but we made the jump together in 2010 and we have been best friends for almost half of our lives now – he knows me better than I know myself. In the past 8 years, we have only grown more, independently and together, and I find new things I love about him every single day.
how they asked
Ross and I had been planning a vacation to Mexico for quite some time. We hadn’t had a vacation for just the two of us in years. Little did I know, he was also planning to propose…My mother and step-father moved to Mexico over a year ago for retirement, so we were planning on staying with them the first night and then spending the rest of our vacation at the resort.
They picked us up from the airport and we went straight to dinner. We threw our bags from the truck bed into the cab and left for about 45 min, came back, and the truck had been broken into…All of our belongings had been taken. Both suitcases, his backpack, and of course…. the ring…We were devastated. He had to tell me about the ring, because I knew we had to make an insurance claim and he hadn’t insured it yet under our renter’s insurance… (The renter’s insurance is under my name, so he wanted to wait until after the proposal, so he didn’t ruin the surprise).
We were going to go home the next day since we felt so beaten down, but in this incredibly stressful situation, we were also so glad to just have each other and facing the reality of all of our stuff being taken was making our relationship feel even stronger. Ross asked if we could stay a few days and try and enjoy the resort, then head home early still from our original week-long trip. I agreed – making the best of a crappy situation was the main goal at this point.
We borrowed some clothes from my parents and bought some necessities, then drank our hearts out and lounged for 2 days on the beach, trying to forget what this vacation was supposed to mean for us.
On the last night there, my parents came to the resort to have dinner with us before we left and after, we decided to go for a stroll on the beach. We got to the water, and Ross, in his 3-sizes-too-large shorts and a Corona t-shirt (all borrowed clothes), got down on one knee and pulled out an aquamarine ring he had bought from the hotel. He told me he found the only ring closest to my size that was also rose gold (which, I love). After everything we went through, after everything that was stolen from us, he didn’t want them to steal this moment, too. His original plans of a secret photographer became my parents (the paparazzi), sneaking in pics off to the side.
All I could think was how lucky I was to have this man in my life that after everything being taken from us, he’s still not beaten down. He still wants to make me happy. I said, “Yes. A MILLION times yes!” I couldn’t care less what we were wearing, where we were, the shaky iPhone pics, or anything – I just want to spend the rest of my life with this man. We still have a long way to go to replace our stuff, but its just stuff, and we are so happy – there is no one else in the world I would rather get my stuff stolen with.
