How it felt to be proposed to

Dramatic re-enactment

Being proposed to is something that girls are supposed to think about. I know this because I have read magazines, watched more than one rom com and went to an all girls’ school. Once, in a year 10 geography lesson, I overheard one girl confidently telling another that she intended her intended to propose to her in a hot air balloon. Never mind that we were about 15 at the time, and as far as I know the proposer in this plan was nowhere on the scene.

I reckon that we first learn this narrative from fairy tales and their Disney rehashes. After a bit of angst you’re going to stumble across the prince, face minor peril along the lines of losing your voice/having a hit put out by your murderous stepmother/being put into coma, or some other routine Jerry Springer-type stuff, and then after a snog or two you get married.

This storyboard is further backed up by a swathe of bossy novels, which spend about 300 pages pretending that the dashing hero is never going to propose to the plucky heroine and then, bam, 83 hours of your life later that is exactly what happens. You nearly had me there Austen, you wily minx. When those have started to seem a bit samey, you move on to glossy rom coms starring beautiful, funny, successful grown women all pining over the question of getting to that moment. Oh do shut up, Bridget.

Obviously, the initial reasoning behind this obsession was based on what for most women in the Western world is now a thankfully defunct social order. Since women can now earn our own money and pay our own bills and live alone, we’re not relying on some guy to come along and provide a way out of the parental home, plus a bit of cash. We get to find other purposes in life, like a high flying career as a trapeze artist or travelling to every abandoned McDonalds in America, or learning how to do the scorpion pose.

And yet society is still so in love with love that there remains to this day sensible adult people who spend time fantasising about their ideal proposal. There are hundreds of thousands of videos on YouTube to give you ideas, like the guy who buttered his girlfriend up with a puppy first (cue hysterical tears) and put the ring around its neck (cue sounds only the puppy could hear). There’s the guy who ropes his family and friends into performing a choreographed parade to Bruno Mars’ Marry You. You will cry. And hate yourself for it. And then, of course, there are the ones that don’t go so well, generally at sports games, but before we start dying inside for these guys, remember that these are probably staged. Or that’s what they’ll claim.

I am not someone who planned out how I wanted a future mystical man to propose. This is partly because, as the child of divorced parents, I didn’t think I would ever be getting married. Maybe some time after 35. And more likely never.

I had fully planned to be an old lady with purple hair, living in a New York apartment crammed with books and mad artefacts from my global travels, eating granola all day and wearing ballgowns and Converse because there was no guy around to be confused about my eclectic fashion sense. And then I went to Berlin and met someone who switched the gear on that grand life plan. Insert long story involving a deployment to Iraq and lots of Skype and over a year waiting to see each other again. I was sitting alone in Phoenix Airport, waiting for my flight back to Heathrow, when I knew that I was going to marry him, in the same unquestioning and total way that I know where the Tube doors will stop and which is the squeaky stair in my childhood home and that it’s always 5 o’clock somewhere.

Four months and a trip to London and a trip to Vegas and more Skype and many discussions later, including a 6am inquiry about what ring I wanted (er, huh?), we’re walking back to my flat after watching Bridge of Spies. Because nothing says romance like Cold War dramas starring Tom Hanks.

It’s a bit damp but mercifully mild, and late enough on a Tuesday night before Christmas that the Southbank has mostly cleared of tourists. I’m full because I've had nearly an entire bag of slightly stale-tasting sweet cinema popcorn and a cheeseburger and chips. My hair is all over the place because of the drizzle. But I don’t really care because he’s actually here, in 3D, and he has warm hands, and I have a sneaky suspicion I know what’s coming.

I’m intuitive, OK.

We get to our favourite bridge, which has a view east of Waterloo Bridge, Southbank, St Paul’s and the Shard in the distance. He pulls me gently over to the silver railings. And he gets out this white box. And time stands still.

Turns out getting proposed to is a lot like deciding to have sex for the first time. Throughout your life you’ve heard that this is a pivotal moment that will mark a dividing line between the time before you knew what all the fuss was about, and the time when you’re in the know. But it’s actually the decision itself that is more important, more formative, than the exact moment.

Standing in front of this man, who is funny and kind and maddening and caring, I decided that despite years of being steadfastly against the idea of committing to one person forever, actually, I’m more than willing to give it everything for him.

And like sex, you’re still the same person after it. That moment doesn’t change you. It’s more that you're knowingly going from one stage of your life to the next. Like levelling up or birthdays in The Sims when they spin round, lights burst out and now they’re a spotty teenager.

Then a drunk guy will come up and congratulate you on being madly in love, and you will smile and nod until he leaves.

I still don’t think everyone should get married, because you know what works for you better than some tax man or priest or nosy relative or diamond salesman. And there's no point planning how to get proposed to, whatever gender you are, because you won't know how it feels until you're there. If the method of question-asking is the most important thing to you, you've kind of missed the long-term implications.

I remember looking across the water as we turned to walk the rest of the way home. The view was the same, we were the same, but while crossing from one end of the bridge to the other, my life had definitely changed in a way I wouldn't have predicted for myself, despite all that Disney. So instead of trying to guess where my steps would fall, I squeezed his warm hand with mine and kept walking.

This old thing?

Knowing, loving and losing my grandparents, 14 years apart

Gramps and I, December 2008

Things I remember about my grandma’s death. She died 13 days before my eleventh birthday, in November 2001. She’d started having headaches in about September. I remember because it was around the time of 9/11, and the combination of events made it seem like there was this sombre shadow over the world.

She was in hospital from about October. I remember sitting in the waiting room in Watford General. There was a vending machine that served what I thought was the world’s greatest hot chocolate. It was the kind made with hot water, which formed these little lumps you could scoop out with your finger and bite into to release a burst of sugared chocolate powder. I would take this full-scale stuffed toy dog with me every time we went. It was a Yorkshire terrier (non-dog speakers’ translation: little, long hair, yippy).

I remember the smell. It must have been a certain brand of disinfectant that smelled forcibly clean. It wasn’t overpowering or heavy, but it seeped through the air and into your clothes and into my grandma, pushing out her usual scent of cardigans and walks in fields and cigarettes.

I was only 10 and no one I was so close to had died before. I believed she was going to get better with the same level of helpless faith that I had in God with a capital G and true love and my parents always being right. Every time the adults had one of their conversations in low, worried tones, peppered with medical terms and the phrase ‘brain tumour’, I maintained that simple expectation that she would be fine. Of course she would be fine. I knew they were all worried, but my belief never faltered.

I can tell you the exact place I was sitting when my mum told us that she was going to die. I was in the back right seat of her Ford Mondeo. My sister was in the passenger seat, my brother was next to me. We were going round a bend on the A404, at the point where you can take a right and go to this tiny village that is basically just a pub and some bored sheep. She said, ‘You do know that Grandma isn’t going to get better?’ None of us answered, but it felt like something I’d put high on a shelf fell off and shattered. I could hear Claire sobbing in the front.

So I only had 10 and a bit years with my grandma. I remember her short grey hair and her big round glasses, which she was always pushing up the bridge of her nose. I remember she made really good tents out of bedsheets and read us stories about teddy bears going to a haunted house and let us run through their tiny bungalow and jump on the bed like little maniacs. I remember her long floral skirts. I remember the taste of her ham sandwiches: airy white bread, olive spread, and ham sliced to this certain thickness, all cut into squares. I remember long walks and feeding ducks and the time this swan went for me (they are seriously vicious bastards) and she stepped right between us, put her finger up and said, ‘No.’ You bet that swan backed the hell off.

I sometimes wonder what our relationship would have been like if she’d known me through all my teenage years and as an adult. Those are the tough ones, after all, the ones where your generational differences start to show and you have to find the balance between needing them and loving them all the time, and reminding them that you are your own person, capable of surviving away from them and making your own life decisions.

Life changed for us all after Grandma Diz died. We all called her Dizzy, but her actually rather excellent name was Audrey Beryl May. I learned that the world isn’t fair, in the way that kids only really learn things when bad stuff happens to them. Meanwhile, in grown up world, my dad and aunt had lost their mother and my grandad was coping with losing the love of his life.

I won’t pretend that I remember what my grandparents’ marriage was like, because as I said before, I was under 11 the entire time, and mostly concerned with my Anastasia Barbie and the fate of the Spice Girls. But I remember my grandad on the day of the funeral. He looked lost. Like someone who’d been dropped in a desert and left to navigate his way out alone, with no compass or map to help.

Slowly and with lots of help from my aunt and Dad, he put together a life. At first, he would still pick my sister and I up from school on a Tuesday. I would make us both tea – his very strong, one Sweetex – and we’d have to sit and try to make conversation across this enormous gap of experience and age.

A lot of people, including both my parents, several employers and café customers, have bemoaned my tea-making skills. But never Gramps.

So I went through my awkward teenage years with my quiet, withdrawn grandad instead of my lively, fun-loving grandma. He wasn’t a great conversationalist, especially not with a 13 year old girl. I would avoid talking about her for fear of upsetting him. These conversations were tricky, but I did learn about his life.

He was in the army doing national service, and was stationed in Italy at one point. He was a crack shot and won a medal in a shooting competition, but he couldn’t afford to keep it up after leaving. He worked in a metal workshop – he was very good at shaping it into whatever he wanted. He needed a constant supply of Wine Gums. He was the kind of loyal Arsenal fan who wouldn’t shout at the TV but just stick out the rough and smooth with determined faith. When he was younger he enjoyed playing football, and he was still into golf and snooker, but those things gradually left him when the call of the armchair in the bungalow he had shared with Grandma became more appealing than a bustling snooker hall.

What was most welcoming was that Gramps was not one of those people fiercely clinging on to outdated values purely because they can’t accept the world has changed. He lived in a sort of bubble, with two TVs and the curtains drawn. He wasn’t interested enough in the world to judge people beyond whether they were hurting others or not. I never heard him say anything racist or homophobic. His motto was ‘Each to their own’, even if he couldn’t quite make sense of the ins and outs of things.

Yes, he could be difficult, and his waning interest in leaving the house and life beyond knowing the lottery numbers, Arsenal score and that we were all OK was frustrating, especially for people who did a lot for him with very little thanks. He was stubborn and tactless, often telling me that he didn’t have much to say and he did nothing all day. Not the greatest conversation starters. But that makes it all the more touching that he did push aside the fog of gloom that descended when Grandma died in order to call us just to say hello.

He’d had headaches and neck pains and emphysema for many years, which made breathing and moving difficult. He still got washed and dressed every day, even if it was just to lie on his bed. His hearing was good enough to listen to a conversation, and it was only in the last few months over Christmas that he became forgetful and confused to a worrying degree. I got to tell him that I’m getting married, which he was delighted about. In January we found out that he had an infection in his pacemaker, which could possibly be treated but would result in reduced mobility. Ultimately, it was the combination of this and an intense hip operation that finally wore him down, and he died at around 8pm on 20 January.

I had an idyllic child’s relationship with Grandma Diz that never had to overcome divided opinions or tension or the strain of miscommunication. And I also feel privileged to have got to know my grandad’s white haired self, as well as a snapshot of him in his prime, over the years when our age gaps made communicating that much harder. He might not have been perfect, but he was him, and that was enough. And I will miss him for being perfectly, imperfectly himself.

The mandatory New Year's resolutions post: my plans for self-improvement and not getting scurvy

Most people don't make New Year's resolutions. This statement is not based on an official survey or scientific research or even a Google search. I know it because every time I ask someone what theirs is, I get a sigh and a shrug and a flippant, 'Oh I don't bother'.

Given this, writing out a list of stuff to improve feels a bit old fashioned. Plus it's not like I'm striving for World Peace or to end poverty or even to save whales. I feel like that's a bit beyond my skill set, but here are a few things I'd like to polish off that could just happen in 366 days.

Be glamorous
This has been an aim since I saw The Devil Wears Prada. Or Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Or whichever film it was that introduced me to the world of women with perfect hair, a different fabulously stylish outfit in every scene, and eternal non-smudged lipstick.

And handbags. Handbags of glory. Not a huge satchel that pulls your coat out of shape and saves your lower back, but a work of fashion art carefully carved into perfect curves and lines. The kind you have to wear long gloves with and dangle elegantly from the crook of your elbow. How strong are their elbows, anyway? My bag always weighs a ton, even when I think I can’t possibly take anything else out of it and still survive the entire day. There's a law of nature dictates that the one time you don’t bring nail clippers, a torch and an A5 notebook will be the time you need them.

I’ve accepted that I’m not cut out for the truly grown up handbag, so last year, my quick fix to this was resolving to paint my nails more. I achieved this by doing them once, on New Year’s Day, and never again. In 2016, the plan is to become someone who remembers to bring make-up and one of those compact mirrors with me and then actually uses them. I will also stop putting off washing my hair or shaving my legs for another day. Or do a better job of hiding that I have.

Stop eating granola
Sweet, crunchy, nutritionally void wonder food. If it was possible to survive on this stuff, I would eat nothing else. But since scurvy is a thing and sugar is now meant to be the devil we’re all exorcising from our diets, it’s time to find new food groups. Like muesli.

Learn more about what’s going on in Britain
Movies, podcasts, articles and my degree have all conspired to swing my focus to what Americans are up to. I know all the states and capitals and NFL teams and what was in the 14th Amendment but I have no idea how many English counties there are, or how first past the post works, or who won the FA Cup last year. (Was it Chelsea? Fuck, I bet it was Chelsea.)

I’ve looked these things up at relevant times, put them in the Post-It part of my brain, and crumpled them into the bin when whatever made them significant is over. I know, I’m a horrible, ignorant person. Which is why this is on my self-improvement list. That’s the point of New Year’s resolutions: to look at all the disappointing bits about yourself and enforce strict measures to replace them with respectable qualities you can bring up around educated people.

Do yoga
Or just stretch a bit. Then a bit more. Basically, I want to get to 26 and still be able to touch my toes with my legs straight without hearing things creaking, cracking and snapping.

Get through the books on my to-read list

2015 was a terrible reading year for me. I ended up getting stuck in the mire of a book called The Moviegoer because it had a sexy ‘50s Americana-style cover. (See above comment regarding being an America groupie.) Plus how can a book about the cinema be dull?

Merciful. God. It was like going on a date with someone who talks about nothing other than the chemical properties of moss and the bowel movements of their cat Boris, complete with slideshow, then gets distracted by something on the floor. So awful that it puts you off ever agreeing to go out with someone again.

But the months have passed, the year ends in a different digit and it’s time to move on. I have an enormous pile of books with unbent spines and clean pages calling my name, plus my parents, fiancé, bank account and table they’re stored on are silently begging me not to buy any more until I’ve read them. Bring on book nerd-dom.

Be on time
I absolutely can be on time. I’ve never missed a flight because I was late. Or a coach. But that’s about it. I have this incredible ability to underestimate how long it will take me to get somewhere. From now on, I will tell myself to leave 15 minutes before I need to. That way, I’ll only leave 10 minutes late and I might still make it.

Don't fear forms
I hate forms. Everyone hates forms. They’re cold and impersonal but also incredibly nosy. Why do you want to know my birthday? Do I get a card and a balloon? What’s it to you if I’m female or male? What if someone doesn’t identify as either? Why do you need to know about my potential devious criminal past? OK, so you are US Customs. Also I have a million previous addresses, which makes what should be a very easy section a bit of a minefield.

Sadly, I’ve learned that you have to fill them in to get paid for things and do other important life stuff, like go to the doctors and vote and give blood and get married. So I’m moving forms to the top of my to-do pile. No more cleaning the house or finally reading that book instead of doing paperwork. Even if it makes me late.

Write more blog posts
The only New Year’s resolution I have ever stuck rigidly to was writing a diary every night, which I still do. Even if you can only write one or two lines, I would absolutely recommend it. It’s like having a continuous chat between your past and future selves, which is pretty entertaining, especially if you’re falling asleep because that's when the Weird Shit comes out. So I’m applying this discipline to the writing I inflict on the people reading this. After all, this is actually fun for me. If you’ve got this far today, come back next week and see if I’ve managed to make it stick.