The Story of My Engagement
Published on 10 Jan 2017
by Alexander Garber
NOTE: My fiancée wishes to stay out of the online limelight, and neither her real name nor her image shall appear in this or future posts.
I met my beloved at a libertarian meet-up in Melbourne in early 2015. We chatted all night and befriended each other on Facebook, but didn't exchange messages for about a week or two thereafter. At the time
I was reading 'Paradise Lost' by John Milton and messaged her to share an especially good passage. This led to our first date: at the Melbourne City Public Library, where we read from 'Paradise Lost' and some other poetry together --
Blake and Shakespeare, if I recall --, and then spent the rest of the evening at the Oriental Tea House.
Our courtship was not without difficulty, for who is not fallible?, but I believe we fell in love immediately and gradually came to realise that a great shift in our lives had come to pass.
On my birthday, 20th of May 2015, my beloved gave to me a beautiful hard-cover journal featuring etchings of William Blake's poetry. In truth, the journal was too fine for me to fill with scrawls of incomplete thoughts, and I put it away until such time as I had something worthwhile to write in it.
On the birthday of my beloved last year, the seventh of January 2016, I finally realised what I wanted to write in the journal: a declaration of love and a proposal of marriage. My first entry was on the twentieth of May 2016, and over the next fifty weeks, I gradually filled the journal with logs, love letters, transcriptions of poetry, original poems, and a short story. I fell behind schedule during the winter and had to recalculate the number of pages per day to fill in order to have the journal ready by the seventh of January 2017.
In December of 2016 I ordered an engagement ring composed of a silver band and a sparkling emerald, which turned out to be the wrong size, and had a nervous wait for it to be resized by a local jeweller.
On the fifth of January, I had the ring.
On the sixth of January, the journal was complete.
After eleven-dozen-and-ten pages of writing from the heart, the last two pages were my final declaration of love in French, Hebrew, Lithuanian, and English; and my proposal of marriage in all four languages.
The declaration of love:
Oui, mon amour, je vois bien l'essentiel avec le coeur: tu m'as trouvé et apprivoisé (bien que je suis encore un animal sauvage); tu es ma rose et je suis pour toujours responsable de toi.
כן, אהובתי, רואה אני היטב בלבי את הדבר החשוב באמת: מצאת אותי ואילפת אותי (אומנם נשאר אני חיית פרא): את השושנה שלי וערב אני לשלומתך לנצח.
Jo, mano meilé, aš svarbiausią dalyką matau: tu mane radai ir prisijaukinau (nors aš vis dar laukinis šveris esu); tu mano rože esi ir aš atsikingas amžinai už tave.
Yes, my love, I see the essential with my heart: thou didst find me and tame me (although I remain a savage beast at heart!); thou art my rose and I am forever responsible for thee.
And finally, the proposal of marriage:
[], ma chׂérie, mon miracle, je t'aimerai pour toujours.
Veux-tu m'épouser?
[אהובתי], יקירתי, נשמה שלי, אאהב אותך לנצח.
התהיי לי לאישה?
[], mano meilė, mano stebuklas, aš tave amžinai mylėsiu. Ar tekėsi už manęs?
[], my darling, my miracle, I thee shall forever love. Wilt thou marry me?
The answers were:
Oui!
כן!
Jo!
Yes!
But now it is within my grasp and the thing required of me is to study hard and work smart.
Now back to work and the next chapter of a wonderful life.
I met my beloved at a libertarian meet-up in Melbourne in early 2015. We chatted all night and befriended each other on Facebook, but didn't exchange messages for about a week or two thereafter. At the time
I was reading 'Paradise Lost' by John Milton and messaged her to share an especially good passage. This led to our first date: at the Melbourne City Public Library, where we read from 'Paradise Lost' and some other poetry together --
Blake and Shakespeare, if I recall --, and then spent the rest of the evening at the Oriental Tea House.Our courtship was not without difficulty, for who is not fallible?, but I believe we fell in love immediately and gradually came to realise that a great shift in our lives had come to pass.
On my birthday, 20th of May 2015, my beloved gave to me a beautiful hard-cover journal featuring etchings of William Blake's poetry. In truth, the journal was too fine for me to fill with scrawls of incomplete thoughts, and I put it away until such time as I had something worthwhile to write in it.
On the birthday of my beloved last year, the seventh of January 2016, I finally realised what I wanted to write in the journal: a declaration of love and a proposal of marriage. My first entry was on the twentieth of May 2016, and over the next fifty weeks, I gradually filled the journal with logs, love letters, transcriptions of poetry, original poems, and a short story. I fell behind schedule during the winter and had to recalculate the number of pages per day to fill in order to have the journal ready by the seventh of January 2017.
In December of 2016 I ordered an engagement ring composed of a silver band and a sparkling emerald, which turned out to be the wrong size, and had a nervous wait for it to be resized by a local jeweller.
On the fifth of January, I had the ring.
On the sixth of January, the journal was complete.
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| My final Kanban ticket before the big day, now complete. |
The declaration of love:
Oui, mon amour, je vois bien l'essentiel avec le coeur: tu m'as trouvé et apprivoisé (bien que je suis encore un animal sauvage); tu es ma rose et je suis pour toujours responsable de toi.
כן, אהובתי, רואה אני היטב בלבי את הדבר החשוב באמת: מצאת אותי ואילפת אותי (אומנם נשאר אני חיית פרא): את השושנה שלי וערב אני לשלומתך לנצח.
Jo, mano meilé, aš svarbiausią dalyką matau: tu mane radai ir prisijaukinau (nors aš vis dar laukinis šveris esu); tu mano rože esi ir aš atsikingas amžinai už tave.
Yes, my love, I see the essential with my heart: thou didst find me and tame me (although I remain a savage beast at heart!); thou art my rose and I am forever responsible for thee.
And finally, the proposal of marriage:
[], ma chׂérie, mon miracle, je t'aimerai pour toujours.
Veux-tu m'épouser?
[אהובתי], יקירתי, נשמה שלי, אאהב אותך לנצח.
התהיי לי לאישה?
 |
| Progress chart at 100%! |
[], mano meilė, mano stebuklas, aš tave amžinai mylėsiu. Ar tekėsi už manęs?
[], my darling, my miracle, I thee shall forever love. Wilt thou marry me?
The answers were:
Oui!
כן!
Jo!
Yes!
Where to from here?
My immediate goal is to get a start as a Ruby software developer, and to work in a location that allows me to move to Lara, Victoria, where my fiancée lives. Our dream is to get married, have a family, and have many children. My heart's desire is to provide for my future family, and it is the motive that drives all my endeavours. My beloved is the embodiment of Christian virtue and every line of code I wrote brings me one step closer to the responsible, meaningful, intentional life I have always dreamed of, and which, at times in my despair I thought forever beyond my grasp.But now it is within my grasp and the thing required of me is to study hard and work smart.
Now back to work and the next chapter of a wonderful life.