Chris is Engaged

One of my best friends, Chris Coleman, proposed to his girlfriend tonight in front of probably +100 people tonight. Last week, I went with him and Steph's sister to get the ring and he wasn't sure what he was going to say but he knew he was going to do it today. They've been talking about marriage for a while now, but she was totally surprised because she thought Chris was going to do it during the summer.

Chris and Steph are both interns at the Christian Campus Fellowship (CCF) and at the end of each Bible Study there is a crazy, random, announcement video.

I was sitting next to Katy Ficke (who also knew what was going on the whole time) and when the video came on, we were really excited and on the edge of our seats. Tonight's video started out with two guys arguing about which animal was better. Since they couldn't come to an agreement, they asked Chris what his thoughts were and he responded "You know what? Today is the day!" He then proceeded to get up and run out of the building shouting this and running toward CCF. Katy and I knew that he was going to actually come into the room and propose to her but we didn't know from where and the video seemed to go on forever. Why wouldn't he just come in and propose already? 5 very long minutes later, he arrived at CCF in the video and came in the back. The video shut off and the live action with the real Chris Coleman started. He made his way through the crowd to the front where she was and stood her up in front of everyone.

Never out of character, "Whew! I have to catch my breath," he said as he put his arms on his knees and took a heavy bite of air.

He pulled the band of commitment out of his pocket, got on one knee, looked her in the eyes and asked her to marry him. All the girls in the room went crazy. High pitched squeals seemed to come out of every crevasse and amplified sporadically. Steph stood in front of him with the biggest smile, pulled him up off his knees as quickly as would be allowed and they kissed and hugged. I looked over to my left and I saw Steph's mom crying. Everyone in the room was on their feet cheering. Katy and I started chanting "Coleman! Coleman!"

What a strange feeling! It is really surreal. Growing up, marriage was always too far in the future to think about. Now I feel so old and young at the same time. At first I felt really happy for both of them and then I felt like loosing one of my best friends. But I know that I'm not really. Then I was thinking how serious a commitment it is. That thought scared me. This year I have heard of more friends that have gotten married, will be married or went to a wedding(s) than all my previous years combined. My roommate had been dating his fiancée for 6 months before proposing. Chris and Steph had been dating about a year. Meredith is getting married. Teresa got married this year. Shane is getting married next year. Nick is getting married soon. Chandler and Liz are getting married. There are others.

Sometimes I have a feeling that something is wrong with me because marriage doesn't appeal to me right now. Maybe I just feel out of place. I don't really know what I'm going to do when I graduate which is good and bad. I feel like there is very little I know right now, but I do know that I really want to travel, I want to help people, and learn cool things like arts and crafts, living off the land, new art techniques and I want to learn about myself and the world. I have 2 weeks of school left and it's really exciting and stressful.