Surprised

This week’s journal entry:

Write about a time someone surprised you. Who surprised you? How did they surprise you? What was your overall reaction? Did it make you happy, sad, confused, overwhelmed?

By Laura Black

            When my husband proposed to me, I was definitely surprised. I was also sleep deprived at the time, so it took a little longer to sink in what just happened. I did have a slight clue it would be happening, but he still surprised me nonetheless. Let me further explain.

            My boyfriend at the time planned a trip to Jamaica for us. We had never been there, but it was on our bucket list to go one day. Yes, I was super excited about the trip. I love the beach, so just that alone had me excited to go. However, I was so swamped with teaching and the number of classes I had that semester. I didn’t have much free time to think about anything other than grading essays. Joe, on the other hand, was doing so much research that he was driving me crazy. He was seriously a freak about it. At the time of all the planning, however, I had no idea he was planning this trip around proposing to me.

            A month or so before the trip, Joe received a piece of mail from Jared. The front of the envelope said something about your bill statement. That was my clue something might be happening, but I wasn’t completely sure. I didn’t want to be disappointed if it didn’t happen, so I put it in the back of my mind. Again, I was so busy with school and constantly grading essays, so I truly didn’t have a lot of time to think about it. It was more of I hope it happens, but if it doesn’t, it’s okay. I knew it would happen at some point.

            Fast forward to weeks leading up to the trip. Joe was a freak. He had everything planned for the entire trip. He had an itinerary for what we would do each day, places we would go to, restaurants to eat at. You name it, he looked it up and was ready to go. We even practiced packing our bags and were ready to go. We were only doing carry-on, which I had never done before. That was a challenge, but it’s definitely the way to go if you can.

            We finally made it to the day we were leaving. Everything was packed, passports were in hand, and we were off to the airport. We were so early that we had a few hours before we had to board. When we went through security, Joe was so nervous, and I couldn’t figure out why. He was pretty high-strung and anxious to get through the line and get his backpack back. I thought it was odd, but I didn’t think much of it.

            While we were waiting to board, we sat by our gate. We took turns getting something to eat. I went first. When I came back, I offered to hold Joe’s backpack, but he refused and said he wanted to keep it with him. At this point, I thought, okay freak keep your backpack with you. I did know he had cash in it, so I just assumed that’s what he was so worried about.

We finally boarded the plane, got to our seats, and we were ready to go. Joe seemed a little anxious still, but he wasn’t as bad as before. He mellowed down a lot, actually. We were both excited, but we were both tired, too. We had left the night before to get to the airport, and we had not slept since the night before. We were both exhausted. We both dozed in and out, but we didn’t sleep much.

We finally arrived in Jamaica. We ended up getting in a little early, and our driver wasn’t ready right away. I had to call the resort to see where our driver was. Within 10 minutes he arrived, and we were finally on our way. Even while in the car, Joe had to have the backpack right by his side.

Once we got to the resort, we went to check in, but we were too early. They didn’t have our room ready yet. There was also another slight issue. The resort had been doing remodeling, and they had lost power for a while. We were able to sit outside on the resort, and we left our bags up front in the main office. Not the backpack, though. Joe held on to that.

Once our room was ready, we unpacked all our stuff. We went out for a walk, and we decided to go next door for dinner. I did need to eat, but overall I was so damn tired. I just wanted to eat and go back to our room for the night. We ate dinner, and Joe kept going on and on about the sunset. Joe insisted we had to get a picture of the sunset. I was getting crabby at this point. I told him we had all week to get a picture of the sunset.

We finished dinner, and we walked back to our resort. Again, Joe insisted on the damn sunset. We need to go get a picture of the sunset. At least he wasn’t worried about the backpack anymore. That was safely tucked away in the room. I reluctantly went on the pool deck with him to look at the sunset and get some pictures.

It was a beautiful view, so I pulled out my phone to take a picture of it. As I took the picture and mentioned how beautiful and perfect the view was, Joe said, “you know what would make this a perfect night?” As I stood there looking at the view, I said, “What?” and continued to look out at the perfect view. I wondered why he didn’t answer me when I said what. Joe again said, “You know what would make this a perfect night?” I then turned around to say “what” again.

As I turned around, I found Joe bent down on one knee with his arm extended out to me. In his hand, he held a white box with a ring in it, and he said, “Will you marry me?” I was shocked. I don’t even remember exactly what I did. Joe stood up; I said yes, and we hugged and kissed. He then said to make sure it fit and put the ring on my finger. It fit perfectly. We stood there for a little bit before we walked back to our room.

As it turned out, Joe had the ring in his backpack, which is why he was so protective of it. He was worried I would go in the bag and see the box. So not only did he have cash in there, but he also had the ring. It now all made sense to me on why he was such a freak about the bag. When we went through security, he was worried they would search the bag, and I would see the box. He was trying to make everything perfect and flawless.

In the end, I was definitely surprised. He pulled it off. He not only planned the perfect vacation for us, but he also pulled off the proposal out on the deck under the perfect sunset. The rest of the vacation was amazing as well. We both loved it so much that we returned there the following year at the same time. This time we met up with friends.

We married back in December, and we returned to Jamaica for our honeymoon. For me, it made sense to return to the place that now holds a special place in my heart. Jamaica will always be special to us, for it is where we got engaged and started our journey together as a married couple.