five years and a ring later

Five years ago, Ethan held my hand for the first time.

It was on what we came to consider one of our first dates, dubbed the Pineapple Adventure. He met me on the steps of IM West at Michigan State when I got out of practice – we’d planned to meet up before hand and I was so excited and texted him as soon as I was out of the pool before rushing to get changed to meet him. We spent the next two hours wandering around campus, flitting from the botanical garden at IM Circle out to the rose and children’s gardens at the far side of campus near the Vet Med building.

We were both so bubbly and excited. We talked about books and swimming and his classes and my writing. We dared each other to walk on the ice that coated the shallow ponds at each of the gardens – it was at these moments that we held hands for the first time.

We were walking back to my apartment, all the way at the opposite end of campus from where we were at the time, by the Wharton Center, when we started talking about how we like liked each other. The “I like you as a friend but also maybe more, I’m interested in trying more,” kind of like.

It felt silly at the time – both of us young adults, reacting to this like schoolchildren. But that’s how those sometimes work out, isn’t it? You meet the person who is your best friend, it doesn’t really matter how old you are at the time. Everyone around you sees how much time you spend together, how much you’re talking, how your face lights up when they’re mentioned.

I don’t remember the exact words we spoke that day, but I do remember that neither one of us let go of the other’s hand the whole walk back to the apartment.

(We hold hands every chance we get these days. At the store, going on walks, sitting at the table or on the couch. Sometimes at night I’ll wake up and scoot closer to Ethan and reach for him across the bed and he’ll take my hand and I’ll fall back to sleep like that. It’s just something we always do, like once we started doing it we can never get ourselves to stop.)

A month ago, we took a trip to Frederik Meijer Gardens in Grand Rapids. We’ve gone together one other time, a few years ago, and we planned to go while we were visiting some family for the holidays. I’d never gone to see the Christmas Tree display they do each year. We held hands the entire time we walked around seeing the lights and decorations from cultures around the world.

We went out to the DeVos Japanese Garden, which was only added five or ten years ago if I remember correctly. I kept having to tell myself to relax and not expect anything, in case nothing ended up happening, but I’d been waiting for Ethan to ask me for weeks (he knew this). He made us walk all the way around the gardens before we climbed back up to the top of the viewing hill looking down over the pond. He wanted a picture of the view, he said. While I turned to take it, he got down on his knee. When I faced him again, he proposed.

Ethan likes to hold my left hand more now, I think, if only to lift it up and smile at the ring on my finger. He never seemed to have a preference before, but I don’t mind. I’m just going to keep taking his hand and holding it.