About a year and a half ago, the Engineer came to me with a ring. Obviously not the magnificent pink wonder on my finger right now, but a ring that meant very much to him nonetheless. From him, it was a sign of his commitment to our relationship and his plans to spend the rest of his life with me. A throwback to the ‘Promise Ring’ of the 50’s, or, a ‘shut up’ ring if you will.
Since then, I have always assumed we would get married and thus have been using the term ‘fiancé’ from time to time. I felt uncomfortable calling him a fiancé as, clearly, he was not my fiancé.
But when you are close to thirty, traveling far distances for the relationship, boyfriend just seems so . . . . high school. So I would call him my fiancé to the crazy border crossing police. Other times I would refer to him as my partner. But seeing as his name can also belong to a girl I was often taken for a lesbian. Which is fine, don’t get me wrong, just not appropriate when I am buying him underwear. Most of the time I referred to him as my ‘person’. He was more than a boyfriend, but not quite my fiancé.
Well now I have a big, fat ring on my finger and we are in fact, fianced. So now it is perfectly all right to call him my fiancé.
Too bad we both feel like nerds saying that word.
The Engineer doesn’t like it. He introduces me as ‘Sarah’. No preamble, just ‘this is Sarah’. I think he hopes people will notice the ring and assume we are engaged.
All this practice of calling him my fiancé and yet I still can’t do it. It feels so forced. So unnatural. So grown up.
GAH! Is that the issue? I’ve been playing wedding in my head since I was able to marry my cat and dress up in my mum’s silk robe. But now that it’s here, it feels so strange. Like I am allowed to go to the wedding sites I have been secretly visiting for the past three years.
Or not so secretly.
My closet wedding hunger is now allowed to be out in the open. I can actually call the Engineer ‘the fiancé’.
So far I still feel like calling him ‘muffin’.
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