August 6, 2013
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For once, a happy post! :)
Carlton, Carlton, Carlton.
I love him.
We talked about getting married today. He was sad and said he wanted to propose, but didn't have enough money for a proper engagement ring. It was so sad, sweet, and adorable! I don't know what to say to that though. Is it too unromantic to straight up tell him that my promise ring is good enough? I don't necessarily even want a different engagement ring. I like my ring and I don't want to stop wearing it for another one. It's got a diamond studded figure 8 [symbol for forever] with one bigger diamond in the middle, and on the sides of the ring are three cut out hearts. He bought it from Helzberg Diamonds and gave it to me on our one year anniversary last January. It was so special! Apparently our stupid UFCU cards didn't work there [UFCU's cards are bad about randomly not working places], so when they told him it wouldn't go through he went straight to the ATM to pull out the entire amount of cash and pay for it in full. He had never bought a ring for anyone before, and he picked it out entirely himself. Blaine went with us to the mall that day so he could distract me. They said that the ladies who helped Carlton in Helzberg said they'd never seen anyone so excited to buy a ring! Even engagement rings! And I knew he bought it that day because he could not contain his excitement to save his life, and his adorable smile just didn't leave all day. He's got a terrible poker-face about those kinds of things. Ironically, his actual poker poker-face is uncanny. Which is pretty hot. Buuuuut, back to the story. Does it seem too desperate to tell him I don't want a different engagement ring and that I just want him to hurry up and be my husband already? I mean a new ring really wouldn't change anything. Even proposing wouldn't really change anything. We have already planned certain things about our wedding, haha. I've always wanted a beach-themed wedding in summertime. But now that he's the one I'm going to marry, I want nothing else but a SXSW-themed wedding during SXSW here in our wonderful city of love and adventure. We fell in love at SXSW, in the heart of Austin. How could any beach - and even the summertime itself in all it's glory - ever compare to Austin in March? We're planning on getting married in either the Hilton downtown, or Zilker Park on the last day of SXSW in whatever year, and we're planning on surprising and confusing everyone by putting on our bandanas up at the alter and getting married in them.
They're "our thing" I guess. Before him, I never would have thought I'd wear a bandana with my fancy wedding dress and carefully done hair on my wedding day, but I never thought I'd end up with Carlton Billingsley. Well actually, I did a few times back in high school - even wrote about it on Xanga - and he was always the one that got away, the first one I'd think of anytime I had a break up. He was always in the back of my mind, and now it only makes sense that I've just now finally realized what a wedding is really all about. I used to think it was about symbols - not of love, but of status and fashion - a "huge rock", an extravagant island, a stupidly-priced designer dress, and albums of precariously-posed photos by some high-profile, artsy photographer. But now I realize that it is about symbols; symbols of love. I don't want a "huge rock", I want my perfect, hand-picked, symbolic, first ring. Our love hasn't changed, why should the ring? I don't to see a beautiful island in the background of my wedding, I want to see the Austin skyline where we fell in love. I don't want an ensemble that you can't lay a finger on without ruining, I want to "ruin" my dress myself with my pink bandana defiantly wrapped around my head, the way it was when we fell in love. And I only want a few of the professionally-taken artsy photographs to be posed, haha. Mostly I just want a solid mental photo album of the day, strong enough to survive a fire - something which professional, artsy photos can never do. And mostly, I just want Carlton Billingsley to be standing beside me - just like he was when we met; when we fell in love; when our house burned down... I don't want it to be "my perfect day", I want it to be our perfect day. Isn't that what a wedding is about? Being together and equal? We're gonna have the best wedding ever, simply because it will be ours. I just want it to happen soon! I know all girls get impatient waiting for their man to pop the question, but I'm even more impatient now that I know what little detail is holding it up! I'm just not sure how to tell him "screw a new ring" in classier terms... Maybe I should pull my old go-to trick of letting him stumble across this Xanga post - I'd definitely have to edit this line out though... Lol. The other thing is that Brittany isn't getting married until December of NEXT year! 2014, almost 2015! So until then, I have maid-of-honor duties to preform, and I'm going to go above and beyond for my best friend's wedding that we've been planning since 4th grade. I've got a huge wedding-planning scrapbook I made for Brittany and Michael and everything. So I'm not sure if it would work for both of us to be engaged at the same time since Brittany is also going to be my maid-of-honor, and we'd have to both be planning two separate weddings at the same time. I don't think it's very fair to either of us to not do the best job we can on our weddings because we're overloaded with planning two. So I'm worried that we'll have to wait until December 2014 to get engaged! Ughhhhh but I CAN'T wait that long! I want to be Shelley Billingsley and pay taxes together right now! Hahaha. We're practically married in every other way. I'm just dying to wear this ring on the other hand, and be a wife. But there's something else I can't wait much longer for either... Gulp - Xanga, I must admit that I have gone baby-crazy. I don't know what it is, but lately my biological alarm clock has been blaring, and I can't find the snooze button! Maybe it's because of Camille and Marvin's baby Kayliana that me and Carlton downright ADORE. Or maybe it's because the name we've picked out together for our future daughter is Summer Jasmine Billingsley, and that is too pretty to not exist yet. Or maybe it's because I am absolutely wild about this boy and want to connect in the most pure, powerful way that two people can. It's probably all of the above. Even though we want kids now, I don't think we're ready for them, mostly financially. But if we got engaged, we'd have enough time to get our act together and be ready for parenthood by the time we're married. Wellllllll Xanga-Xang, I'm about done with this wishy-washy, lovey-dovey post. It's time to go to bed. Haha, yes, at 7am... I outlasted Carlton tonight. I'm looking forward to have time to sleep on all of this, because sleep will probably bring me that perfect battle-plan, and because my dreams can only be sweet right now. Watch, I just jinxed it and now I'll have dreams about the fire again, ugh. <<By typing that, I tried to un-jinx it, but this right here might just be re-jinxing it. And now I've lost track of what kind of jinx I have or haven't lined up for myself in my dreams tonight. Oh well, I'll find out! Later!
