How We Met
The summer before my Sophomore year of high school was going great.  I was looking forward to IB and my first AP class, and I had finally found my high school niche with a group called SoundWave.  SoundWave camp was at the end of the summer.  Four days at the Pink Shell with my group just singing and dancing - what part of that DOESN'T sound like me!  This was to include this incoming freshman that was joining our ranks.  My old dance partners had just graduated, and Jaret was the shortest guy, so naturally, he was assigned as my dance partner.  Adrienne, the dance captain, pulled me aside and instructed me, “Show him how we do things right.  Push him around if you need to.”  So I went in, the big bad sophomore, to show off.  On the very opening number, he whirled me around, and whipped me in close with a move that made my heart skip a beat.  I looked up at him and realized I wouldn’t be able to make it through an entire performance season dancing this number with him if I couldn’t even remember my own name after just one practice!  I told the newbie that he needed to be less intense and ease up.  Our first dance was to Cole Porter’s From This Moment On. 

He fit well into our SoundWave family, but we became close friends when I thought I could talk to him about other guys and “why isn’t he more like you?”  Evil? Perhaps, but not intentionally, just the misplaced whimsy of a naïve girl.  One night on the phone, he seemed to be stumbling over his words more than his usual listening, comforting silence.  It sounded like he was trying to ask me out.  I cut him off saying, “Look, if you’re asking me out, you can just save your breath; my parents won’t let me date.  But I know people are saying we’d make a cute couple.”  His response made my heart skip a beat, again.  “People may have told me ‘You should date Joy.’  They never said, ‘You should love Joy.’”

When We Got Engaged: Saturday, August 4, 2007.
How It Happened
I had promised Jaret that I would spend Saturday with him, so we went to brunch.  Sitting next to me in the booth, he was bouncing his foot.  I asked him what he was nervous about – because he only is jittery when he’s nervous.  All he said was that he hated/loved that I knew him so well.  Claiming that he still had work to do at his mother’s house, I offered to sit with him and do my work from my laptop.  On the way over, he was excited about going for a run or exercise walk; I thought he was insane– it was 98 degrees outside!  But who am I to dissuade from anyone from exercise.  He sped past his mom’s house and declared we were going for a walk. 

The Eco Park boardwalk has become a very important place to us.  We have walked through the park a few times.  Something about the cover of the mangroves and the complete detachment from the traffic and hectic rhythm of the city makes it easy for us to talk there.  It is where we had figured out our plans for the next five years, just 7 weeks before.  It also looks over the Caloosahatchee River and downtown Fort Myers, where we grew up together. 
He reminded me of this as he walked me to the end of the pier where there was a vase of roses and a card, in his handwriting, with my name on it.  The dozen roses were 11 red ones, “one for each year we’ve known each other;” and the last one was white, “for our future,” according to the card.  As I finished reading the card, I turned around and he was down on one knee.  Walking back to the car, he asked if I wanted to know the specs of my new ring.  I told him he could have proposed with a twist-tie, and I still would have said yes. 

The Ring
While we were checking out my new school on Grand Cayman, we went ring shopping “just for fun;” as it turns out, not so much.  As an alternative, I challenged him to design a ring online at the same time I did, and we would show each other our choices simultaneously.  We designed the same exact ring – a very unique, stylish setting that is reminiscent of a star.  So unique, in fact, that the setting did not previously exist!  He had it custom designed for us.   

We plan to get married before I leave for medical school.