Anyone close to me know, I love surprises. The thing is, if we’re close, it’s hard to surprise me because my intuition is pretty sharp. However, somehow, some way, Eddie pulled a quick one on me, and blind-sided me with a wedding proposal. For those who were curious, here’s our story:

Tuesday night, Eddie and I went to the gym to work out. As we were finishing up and getting ready to leave, I overheard him tell some of our friends that we’d be back around 6pm Thursday.

“Um, YOU can be here around 6; I’m working out at 4.” I told him. I prefer to go to the gym right after work, because the longer I kick back and relax, the less motivated I am to get up and go sweat for an hour. He pleaded with me but I rolled my eyes, and asked to leave so we could go have dinner.

Thursday came around, and I met him at his place per usual. I had been laying on the couch for a couple hours, so you can imagine how excited I was to go to the gym…

“Besides,” I told him, “you worked out this morning. And I feel exhausted. We don’t have to go.”

But he was persistent, and I was getting annoyed so I finally agreed. There are very few workouts I’ve ever regretted doing, I wouldn’t regret this one either, I guess.

I had received a couple text messages from a couple friends asking me if I was going to be at the gym, because they had something for me. That in itself isn’t out of the norm, but what had my intuition going off was that they wanted me to come later in the evening; normally they’re both fine with me coming in earlier like I normally do. Both of these friends were going to be at the weightlifting team holiday party the next evening so I didn’t really understand why it was important to give me gifts that night. But I brushed it off, thinking maybe they didn’t want to give me a gift in front of other people maybe they hadn’t shopped for.

So we went to the gym and chatted with friends before going back into the weightlifting room to lift. A mutual friend was there who normally works out in the morning, which I thought was kind of strange. She said she had planned on working out but forgot her gym shoes. I asked her what size she was, to offer mine because I was about to change into my weightlifting shoes anyway, but she insisted it was fine and she’d just watch us lift instead. Again, weird.

Eddie and I went into the weightlifting room to start training. Mary pointed out where she had left her gift to me, but told me I couldn’t open it yet. I had only gotten maybe 30-minutes of lifting in before I hurt myself (small hip injury caused by tight hamstrings). So I sat out the rest of training and stretched while chatting with Amy. Again, kind of weird because it sounded like she had wanted me to come in to work out with her, but she wasn’t working out… Eddie was in and out of the weightlifting room, disappearing into the CrossFit room from time to time. I figured he was going to get water because he had forgotten his Hydroflask, and didn’t want to share with me because I’m still coming off of a cold. I didn’t think too much into it.

At one point, Eddie started shifting through his gym bag and didn’t look like he was finding what he was looking for. I asked what he was searching for and he grabbed his jump rope and said someone in the CrossFit class wanted to borrow it. I kinda sighed and asked if we were going to be there for another hour (I was tired and hungry and ready to go whenever he was).

Later, he came over and helped me stand with both hands. I noticed in the corner of my eye that a large group was forming on one side of the room, and Mary had her phone out and pointing it at us. 

Oh my God, it’s happening.

Eddie started sharing with me, eyes wet and voice trembling, about how he knew I was special the first time he saw me, in high school and wished that he had talked to me back then. My adrenaline spiked, my stomach was in knots. I felt like I was trembling, too. Eddie continued, that later into adulthood when we met last year at the gym, he knew there was something special about me and that I take his breath away, that he wants to keep that going the rest of our lives, and asked me to marry him.

Of course I said yes, to the cheers of our friends who had gathered to witness. 

When I stepped back from hugging him, my parents walked up to me and that’s when I lost it. I  sobbed into my dad’s shoulder. My parents aren’t on social media, and Eddie doesn’t have their phone numbers, so the fact that they were there meant that Eddie had to have done some footwork to make this happen.

I am so grateful for our friends who came by the gym to surround us with love and support as we open the newest chapter of our lives, for Arielle for capturing such beautiful moments, and Eddie himself, for putting in so much effort to surprise me, the lover of surprises.

I’m looking forward to sharing this newest adventure in engagement!