5/16/17

i'm thankful to have realized yesterday that the anniversary of our engagement was probably coming up soon and to have made a reminder in my phone to look up when exactly it was. i'm thankful, looking later in the day yesterday, to have found the refund receipt from catbird from when we returned the ring after i proposed so d could get a different one, and to have used that to triangulate when i probably would have proposed. 

 

i'm thankful, in this way, to have figured out that today was most likely the two year anniversary of our engagement. i'm thankful that the anniversary of our engagement may seem like an arbitrary holiday to celebrate, but i'm thankful to know that all holidays are arbitrary and that doesn't stop us from celebrating the rest of them, so i'm going to celebrate this one.

 

i'm thankful that the story i tell people about when i proposed is that one saturday morning in may i waited on one knee by d's bedside for her to wake up and then proposed. i'm thankful that this is not the real story and i'm thankful that the real story is one i won't tell. i'm thankful, as a person who tells people almost everything about my life, that it feels powerful that this particular story is a secret, like something i carry in a locket in my mind. i'm thankful that in the weeks between our engagement and marriage, we didn't tell people we were engaged, which meant that it was always our secret.

 

i'm thankful that last night when d came to bed i told her that i thought the anniversary of our engagement was today. i'm thankful that, as i did, she went to her phone to root through her digital closets and drawers for confirmation. i'm thankful that she found it in a picture of flowers she posted on instagram that day. i'm thankful to remember how that morning after she said yes we walked to the farmer's market and she bought the bouquet. i'm thankful to remember that it was a cloudy day, and muggy i think, but we didn't care.

 

i'm thankful to have this picture of flowers as a way to remember the day. i'm thankful for pictures of flowers, which feel like ideal pictures formally, since flowers die and wilt so quickly but a picture can capture an instant before that happens and hold it in perpetuity. i'm thankful to imagine, as years pass and platforms die, us migrating this picture of flowers in the window of our apartment from service to service as a way of keeping it alive. 

 

i'm thankful for ways to keep it alive.