Life with C&S

From Friend-Zone To Engaged

After our first date, everything became easy. We became great friends and spent most of our time together. Then, one day, we sat down together in the park after a long walk of talking about life and then… “I think I just want to be friends.”

Now hold on a minute, before you freak out and go off on how terrible Sterling is for friend-zoning me, it was actually me that said that. I know! Me! The girl who dreamed of this guy. Well, I felt like things were moving too fast and I wanted to slow things down, so I put Sterling in the friend-zone. Another terrible move on my part. The only thing that I can say to redeem myself is that the whole “friend-zone” thing didn’t last very long. In fact, we kept hanging out almost every day! I had found a great friend and I didn’t want to lose that.

After the semester ended and we both moved back home for break, we visited each other. I mean, who does that in the friend-zone?! They should make rules for these kinds of things. Anyways, after a few visits, we were at the beach (since we both lived in California) watching the sunset. We sat closer and closer until we had our arms around each other. “You’re making it really hard not to like you,” I said. Clearly, I couldn’t make up my mind. “Well, it doesn’t have to be hard.” Sterling had so much wisdom. Then it dawned on me… Why don’t we just date again? I really like him, he really likes me. He’d put up with my craziness of not being able to decide what I want. He is for sure a keeper and I could see myself with him for the rest of my life… Why didn’t I recognize this sooner?! We will never know. I’m just glad that I finally came to my senses, because it was the best decision I could have made. Other than saying YES!

So we dated for a few months, and I was very adamant that it would stay that way. I wasn’t ready for marriage yet, so I told him that I would say ‘no’ if he asked me to marry him. I was definitely a late bloomer and it took me while to accept change. Well, Sterling had made up his mind.

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One night, I decided I was tired of seemingly endless homework, and I wanted to get out of my apartment. So, I took two of my roommates and headed out for the sand dunes. Which were 30 minutes away. After about 15 minutes of driving, I received a call. It was Sterling. “Hey, are you home?” “No, I’m driving out to the sand dunes. I left about 15 minutes ago. Why?” “You need to turn around now and go back home!” This was a little alarming. It was a quite evening and I didn’t feel like there was any urgency to be in my apartment. “You have to turn back now, there is something waiting for you in your apartment that is like a ticking time bomb!”

This definitely stopped me in my tracks and I turned the car around as quickly as I could. I raced back to my apartment only to find a note on my pillow from Sterling. I opened it. It was a clue. He was sending me on a scavenger hunt! The first clue sent me to the park where we climbed a tree on our first date. So I go to the tree that we climbed and found another clue to go to the restaurant that we first ate at on our first date. There I found another clue. Clue after clue took me to meaningful spots around our college town that had played key parts in our story up until that point.

With the final clue, I drove to an empty parking lot, only to find twinkle lights, candles, balloons, and a love letter with my best friend beside it. He read it aloud to me, and we both cried. He didn’t pop the question though. Honestly, that must have taken him so much restraint. Knowing that he wanted to ask me to marry him, but also knowing that I would turn him down because I wasn’t ready to say yes. Just another reason why I love him so much. He has always been so patient with me and respected my wishes. Little did I know that he would count that as the proposal without popping the question. He didn’t plan to go through all the work and prep again just to ask me. What comes next just makes us look back and laugh. And makes Sterling a little embarrassed.

It was Christmas time. We had just spent Christmas with our families, and he invited me to come up with his family to their cabin for the week after Christmas. We drove up together and had to wait at his grandparent’s house for a few hours while his brother arrived. Everyone else had already gone up to the cabin.

We were sitting on the couch talking about life and Sterling gets up to ‘go to the bathroom’ and comes back and we keep talking about life. The topic of marriage comes up and before I know it, Sterling has rolled off the couch, onto his knees, and pulls the ring out. “Are you serious?” He looks scared now, like he has made the biggest mistake. “Are you serious?!” I just keep repeating this. It's not an excited ‘are you serious,’ it’s more like ‘what are you doing? Are you seriously doing this now?” kind of ‘are you serious.’ Standing his ground, he remains with a smile and says, “Yes, I want you to marry me. Will you?”

After a few moments of pondering my response, a recollection of all of the wonderful times we’ve spent together flashed through my mind. Almost like I was watching a movie of my life with Sterling so far. And it was only beautiful. And I realized, I love him and I know it 100%. Why wait any longer? Will I ever actually feel ready for marriage? Probably not, but who is? It’s the journey and who you spend it with that matters. So, I said Yes!