Okay, okay, okay.

“Okay, okay, okay. How do I put this, how do I – this world, am I right? I am right, I am. Though you must think me far from sane, pacing like this right in front of you, of that I’m certain as well, but I can’t very well help it, because there’s so much I need to – okay, okay, okay, so. I should probably start again, shouldn’t I? I should. I will. 

            You know how sometimes the light hits a tiniest bit different than usual, maybe it’s just rained, and the grass has suddenly turned an entirely different shade of green, more vibrant, lively; or maybe you’ve woken up twenty minutes earlier than usual and the taste of your coffee is unlike anything you’re used to, solely because the sun is yet to swing by the horizon and it’s not like you woke up to a new day as much as to a whole new world. Or sometimes there appears a rainbow all out of a sudden and maybe you’ve been having a really bad day until then, but doesn’t that chance prismatic refraction of light transform your perspective for just a second as though the colours got reflected in the drops lingering on the edge of your eyelids as well? It doesn’t matter that it was only for a second, it doesn’t matter that it didn’t last, what matters is that it happened at all. 

And it’s all a chance, see? Our lives are shaped by these everchanging tints of light, by flickers of unexpected luminescence, by minuscule accidents that eventually turn out to have been profoundly magnitudinous events. Like when the two of us met, right? I mean, who could call me being nervous because of a job interview to the point of getting up at so early an hour that it was probably a record of mine (and it was only that much more intense in the streets of that brand new city that overwhelmed me by its immensity, by its tall buildings and loud brickwork), and stumbling to the closest bakery in a desperate need for a chocolate cake – I mean, who could call me finding you instead anything but the luckiest of accidents that made me who I am today. Ah, how I love that, how – how I love that at one moment you’re freezing your ass off with your stomach twisting and brain running a mile a minute, roaming streets that absolutely terrify you and thinking that maybe you shouldn’t ever have left the comfort of your hometown and next thing you know you are meeting the love of your life. And that’s life summed up for you. And perhaps the most magical part of it all is that you only know how significant that one second was until it’s over and you are forced to only relive it in your increasingly halcyon-coloured memories, bouncing off of the corners of your mind. 

I love all of this so much that I could choke on my words because whatever I say my brain is always going to be faster than my mouth and whatever I say it’s never going to be enough, and somehow, I love that, too, you know? That we are so full of feelings and thoughts and sensations that we are left utterly unable to express it. Like right now. I can say that I love waking up in the morning and pointedly avoiding the news at least until after I’ve had my coffee, and that I love drinking my second coffee in the afternoon not because it keeps me awake at work (although, that, too), but because it’s a regularity and as much as I am in awe of coincidences, I appreciate regularities and how specific they render each and every one of us. My favourite regularities are now those that include you. Like kissing you because I can, or going on walks with Max, or cooking together, or having movie marathons on cold, wintry days. I wonder what that says about me. But whatever I say, it’s never going to be quite enough. 

Because, you see, (and you’ve known me for quite a while so you surely do), there’s so much I utterly adore – going to galleries and to museums and especially so to exhibits that I previously had absolutely no idea about, because I love the feeling of having a new sphere opened up right in front of me; reading books that I seemingly know word by word and still manage to find something new in them (and, frankly, I don’t care that you say I already knew that and just keep forgetting, if it feels like it’s new, it’s new); looking up to the sky and kneading the soil, singing at the top of my lungs and whispering at night, because somehow when it’s dark we feel it’s inappropriate to use our normal voices. I even love washing the dishes with you, because, well, it’s with you, and because there’s a sense of normalcy and mundanity enveloping the kitchen, and I find our ordinary little life full of magic, scintillating, enchanting, delightful. Sometimes I think I’m too small, too fragile for all that love to fit into my body, because if I could I would embrace the entire world with it, but somehow, like my love for you, it doesn’t break, it doesn’t waver – it’s steady, solid. 

And all these people with all these lives of theirs moving around us, isn’t that wonderful, too? Like the fact that you meet people who sing to their plants, who tell stories to their dogs, who bake pastries for their neighbours when they can’t sleep, and yes, I know that all of those people are, in fact, you, but I also know that you are my favourite person, you are my person, actually, and the humankind should be lucky to have you for its representative, okay? Okay. Actually, it should be really damn honoured. Because as much as I adore being alive, as much as I find every chance second of life wondrous, even the fact that you are sitting here, following my every move with those green eyes of yours because I seem unable to stop myself from moving around, because there’s just too much and it’s way too hot in here, and you look so – well, I guess it must be the light once again, because you look so new, will I ever get enough of you? But I digress, and I know you think I do that way too much, so, getting back on track. And the track goes like this: however much I am in love with life, lately it makes no sense to not share it with you, because what is life without you at all and yes, I’m almost done, stop squirming around, I want you to hear this, because it’s not solely one of my regularities, one of my monologues (which you surely thought this was), and I know this is way too long even for me, but that’s what you signed up for, being with me. But this long preamble, this rumbling storm of words which made no sense at all, this whirl of love that I’m afraid may have pushed you away is really just to say Paul, will you marry me?”  

“Oh. Pete, I –. First of all: well, that was dramatic –”