Engaged!

Not me. One of my best friends. I’ve often been one to comment on how everyone around me is getting engaged, but now when I say it it’s not even a complaint. Especially not in the case of Stephanie, who has been one of my best friends since my first week of college!

Don’t lie, you’ve seen these all over the place and at least silently agreed:

Well, admittedly in my case it’s more like this:

But then one of my good friends gets engaged all of a sudden and I’m just a mass of joy and long distance hugs and wanting to know details. I look something more along the lines of:

I mean, I really don’t know what comes over me. I haven’t much enjoyed the weddings I’ve been to in the past, but as more and more of the wonderful people I know get married, I seem to get more excited each time.

I think that maybe it’s because I’m seeing a greater sense of determination and commitment than I’ve seen in my peers before. Maybe it’s because I’m learning to be less self-focused. Maybe it’s because I want to be at all my good friends’ weddings and I also want to go live abroad, and since those two don’t mix well (ie: affordably), it’s nice that they’re all happening at once, and while I’m in the country. Maybe it’s all of those things, and maybe it’s more. Maybe I’m finding a little encouragement and courage in these relationships that I wasn’t sure of before; maybe I’m realizing that perhaps one day, eventually, I’ll want that too.

Anyway. Here’s a huge Congratulations to my friend Stephanie, who surprised me infinitely with her announcement in the form of this lovely picture: