Blue Skies and Proposals.
It was February 18th, 2011. The sky was blue with wisps of white translucent clouds that floated by. The sun was warm on the parts of my face that weren’t covered with helmet, goggles, or neck warmer. It was 50 degrees and the snow was soft and powdery. We hadn’t seen a ski day like that at Okemo in a few years.
I stopped at the top of the mountain to take pictures after we had done a few runs. Ben skied on ahead of me. When I met him partway down the trail, he was bending over fixing his boot. I didn’t think much of this as he is a telemark skier and is constantly adjusting his gear. When he looked up at me though, I knew, I knew by the look on his face. I’m not sure if I will always be able to remember the exact words that were spoken after that, but I know I will remember the look on his face for the rest of my life. Somewhere between the beautiful words he said and the tears that I immediately began to cry, I agreed to marry that wonderful man right there in the middle of a ski mountain. I agreed to marry my best friend and the man who challenges me to be a better person every day. I agreed to marry the man who has seen me at my best, and seen me at my absolute worst.
What ensued after that moment was one of the most magical conversations of my life. Don’t get me wrong, I adored hearing him ask me to marry him and I said yes with all of my heart (and the ring isn’t too bad either 
)…but that conversation, the one where we took off our skis and sat in the snow for a while and just talked, that’s the one I will hold in the deepest part of my heart for the rest of my life. There was no expectation and there was nothing standing between us, there was nothing telling us where to go or what to do…we were able to just be with each other in that moment on that mountain and revel in the beautiful notion of spending our lives together.
He makes me tea in the morning. He holds my hand when I’m scared. He sits with me when I’m crying, even if we both know there are no words that will make it better. He makes me laugh daily. He sees beyond anything I am on the outside to the core of my being. He’s everything, and he doesn’t even know it most days. He travels the world not realizing the light within him is what made me love him in the first place. I hadn’t even met him yet, but I knew I wanted to know him. He is quietly kind and wonderfully weird.
I adore this man. When you strip away the clutter from your mind and from your world, it becomes so much easier to love. I can’t wait to continue to clear away the clutter, to learn, to grow, to experience, explore, and play with this man.
Thank you for handing me the best day of my life. I’ll love you until my heart stops beating…and after that I’ll float around the universe with you basking in the nothingness of it all.
