Not everyone, but some people cries when they get engaged. I did. It was very emotional. I was all shaky and the script I wrote on the bus from London to Swansea and tried to memorize during that week, was all blurry in my head. So I stuttered. Emotions came all rushing to my head and, when I finally got down on my knees in that small cold room in Wales, tears streamed down my face when I popped the question. She weeped a for a couple seconds, but didn’t hesitate to respond.

“Yes.”

I cried when I proposed to her a couple of months ago. It was an intense moment and I’m not made of stone. I cried, she cried, we both cried and hugged and laughed and cuddled. Love was all around. Though it wasn’t the time I cried the most. That was one or two days earlier.

It was the end of springtime. But definition of early summer in Wales apparently it’s just less grey skies and the occasional piss down. That was the case that day. It’d been raining the whole morning and it was a cloudy afternoon. Boring day in Swansea. One boring day in my first week in Europe.

I was feeling off. I felt off since I got there. Too many thoughts stuck in my head, too much of a past I hadn’t been able to process and was still filling me up with doubt and resentment. Everything was different. Shit, I was different to everything and everyone around me in that house. In that continent.

I was in the kitchen. She was there, talking to one of her roomies and master’s mate. Have you ever been in one of those conversations where you feel completely unrelated? That was one of those for me. I was there, yet my presence was the one of an spectator than anything else. What did I know about Southern Asia, traveling the world, fancy named university studies or global politics? Nothing, so I couldn’t give less of a fuck, but my girl, on the other hand, loves all of that. She’s done it all. Me? Not even close.

Left the kitchen and went upstairs to the room. A sadness so intense I could hardly fake another smile struck me. She got up there and found me, sitting on the bed. “What’s wrong?” she asked, sitting next to me. I let it all out. Cried for like 25 minutes straight.

It was impossible for me to talk while the tears wouldn’t stop coming out of my eyes. With one of my arms I was holding her, while with the other hand strongly grabbed my pocket. My wallet was in there, the engagement ring inside. A humble silver ring with a lapis lazuli rock. Humble as myself. Cheap as myself.

What was I doing there? Why was she with me? We were two worlds apart, two completely opposite realities. Two lives that crossed at random at a certain point in each others path. Just that. And I felt off. And sad, because despite of all the nonsense of our unlikely relationship, there I was, carrying around a crappy engagement ring for the last ten days. Thinking of the words I wanted to say to ask her to marry me, as a leper would ask Jesus to be healed.

Though I couldn’t explain to her the fully extent of my sorrow, she comforted me. She said she didn’t care about me being poor or not having a university degree, nor my traveling inexperience. She explained me how I gave her so much more than any of the other people she’d met, people I was comparing myself with. And I realized it.

“I wanna do this. I wanna marry her. Fuck it.”

So a one or two days after that, there I was on my knees, holding that cheap humble ring with a blue stone on it. Reciting the speech I wrote when I got to the UK, reading it straight from my memory, seasoning everything with passion and true heart felt words.

“L, you are the most beautiful and amazing person I’ve ever known. You make me feel better and be the best version of myself I can be. I don’t know if being with you the rest of my life will be enough time, but I think it’s a great start. So… L, will you marry me?”

(This is the speech I wrote. It was probably a bit different, but along those lines.)

Yes, I was one of those people who cried when they got engaged. I cried, she cried, we both cried. She said yes and until today she says she loves her ring. Cheap and humble, as myself. And I love her. For that, for all.