In The Mid-Autumn Breeze

Quote board:

Me: Hi internet.
Internet: Sup, gangsta.
Me: So that goat blog, it was to soften you up.
Internet: Why. Did you move out of that house you shared with three hot truckers? Are you going to write about it or something and bum my ass out?
Me: Yeah.
Internet: Will you at least share your plane-widow-tic-tacs? Sorry, that's their street name. I meant xanax. Just kidding, I'm the internet. I can't pop pills. Did you know I feature a video on YouTube of this gross couple dry-humping on a really crowded beach? And it's like seven minutes long? I am the technology responsible for everyone having A.D.D. You should put my text in the color of poop.
Me: Anyway. Moving day was Saturday. Hardest thing I've ever done. It stabbed my soul. Internet, please do something about my sad, stabbed soul. I don't live at reboyfriend's anymore. It's not our home. I liked it being our house. And I like being grammatically incorrect when describing it. Like as in Kir, where is my rashguard? Oh, it's at me and Reboyfriend's. And There are five pounds of blueberries at me and Reboyfriend's. You know what, it's not grammatically incorrect because "Me And Reboyfriend" was its own entity. The rashguard was at [entity]'s. There was always a blueberry stash at [entity]'s.
Internet: You talk too much. I miss that goat story.
Me: I put the sheets in a special box.
Internet: Of course you did.
Me: And the bridal magazine.
Internet: I'm sorry, Kir. I will furnish about four hundred supportive, pithy, amazing comments from the people who read this blog.
Me: I know. That's why I'm here.

I remember a time Rbf was trying to get me to move in with him but I was dripping with too much awesomeness to do such a thing. I was skidding around life, with my music on shuffle. A Great Lake Swimmers song came up (I Will Never See The Sun). It was the first time I'd ever heard it. And this freak-of-nature daydream painted itself into my mind in about four seconds. It was like a daydream you spend five commutes designing, but I hadn't. It just injected itself into my mind in an instant.

It was me and him walking through this weird, freaky looking church I saw once in Jackson Hole. We had just said our vows and kissed, and then we flatly turned and walked out of the church without much fanfare. My dress was gauzy and frayed in some fantastically edgy, indie fashion. The church had these giant, obscene windows overlooking the Tetons. I can't imagine why that came into my head.

But it was the first time I realized I would probably marry this guy. Once you picture your Melissa Sweet "Fern" dress, and x guy by your side, it's over. Just forget it. The wedding would be in the Fall. Of course it would, because September 17th would be your wedding day, and the Tetons would be breathtaking.

Maybe my subconscious was doing it to me because he had just got my mind on it. I swear he did it on purpose. That nerd. He figured out how he wanted to proposed. He was so proud of the fact that he had a romantic idea that he told me exactly how he was going to do it. In his plane, with the words lit up on the ground in candles.

A friend of his, Ricky, called me a few weeks after the funeral, saying his girlfriend told him not to tell me this (no girl wants to hear those words). But he disagreed, and thought I should know. That the weekend before the crash when Rbf was visiting, they stayed up late planning a trip where Rbf and I would fly the Navion to Texas and meet Ricky and his girlfriend, before driving in to Mexico on a road trip. Ricky said he believed that's when Rbf was planning to pop the official question. It was going to be over Thanksgiving and my birthday. I told Ricky he absolutely did the right thing by telling me.

Because it was a lot more romantic than the preliminary proposal, which took place in the cluttered sleeper of a motocross semi.

Me: You know I am OK if we never get married, right?
Him: Shrug.
Me: Is it important to you to get married?
Him: [Long Pause]. Yeah.
Me: Because I mean, I'm putting you on the title of the house, and you said you're putting the plane in my name, and if we have that bastard child I keep talking about, I think I'm pretty much yours. I'm just saying, there's no m-word pressure, or anything. Just so you know. [I'm breezy!]
Him: I want to be married.
Me: .............OK.
Him: Will you marry me?
Me: haha.
Him: [Quietness and no smile, somber].

I realized then that he was tired of being timid with me about it, done trying to be cool, done hinting. No more jokes about Five Guy burgers being near his house, no more looking subdued when I'd tell him what a joke marriage is. The change I saw in him after his family reunion...the talk about him wanting me to be friends with his mom all of a sudden. Even the look on his face when he saw the ranch in Leavenworth my father said he was leaving me, the runways he was probably designing there, in his mind's eye. It all clicks now. And I remember this moment like it was this morning. He had his hands behind his head and he stared at the ceiling of that messy cab.

Me: [realizing he's not kidding]. Of course, Jed. Of course I'll marry you.

And there we had it, so I took his picture.

And then I kissed him and he fell asleep and snored.

And then three months later, I moved my things out of Me And Reboyfriend's, and it introduced me to a new brand of pain. It was a very pretty Fall day. I guess that's all I can really say about it.