I’m engaged!
I know, it’s weird for even I to say it. I’m not normally the type of person to be all lovey-dovey and affectionate and into the chick-flick life. But here I am, writing this post about my own love story. Hope it isn't too sappy to read through since I know that's annoying, so I'll try sparing you.
(If you don't have time to read the entire post, then you can skip about half way down for the actual proposal story. It is after the second set of photos and starts at "He kept his promise.".)
I met my fiancé just over a year ago, mid-morning on July 31st 2020. I was working that day doing Point of Contact up on surface at the mine I work at. One of POC’s responsibilities is to hand out brass and self-rescuers for visitors to borrow in order for them to be allowed to go underground. For them to borrow them, they need to give us their ID until they return the items when they come back to surface.
At the end of each New Hire class, they spend the last day underground doing a tour before they start their actual positions they were hired for. In this particular New Hire class was this guy. In he walks, all tall and handsome with amazing green eyes. I did immediately think he was damn good-looking. I take his ID along with his classmate’s and give them all brass. They leave for the day to go on their tour.
A little while after they leave, I look at the stud’s ID for his full name…Joseph Melton. I then proceeded to stalk the guy on social media a little when I wasn’t busy with work. I saw that he was into snowboarding, and had a sports bike, hung out in the mountains, was local; all the things I like to do and am into. He seemed pretty cool. I did notice a couple photos of him and a gal that seemed like an item, so I decided to just leave it alone and not mess with that if they were involved. Wasn’t my place. So I packed up the interest and that was that.
Months went by. I would see Joe here and there in passing at work. At first, we ended up not even being on the same-sided crew for a few months when he first started, so I would sometimes see him walk by every week or two.
Then he started working on A Crew, which is opposite of my C Crew. Joe and my best friend, Drake, got into the Miner 3 program together. They had known each other previous to the mine, but had just started to hang out more outside of work. I saw Joe hanging out with Drake sometimes when they would be in the town I live in. I knew they’d go get Taco Bell in the middle of the night every Wednesday after Bingo at the Snow Creek. Once, I was bartending at another job when they came in and that was fun to hang out with them some that way.
I would give Joe shit about him not being my friend when I’d tell Drake something and Joe was being nosey and asking what I was talking about, that one would have to be my friend for me to share my secrets to. Once I saw them up at Red Lodge Mountain snowboarding, but I couldn’t board the backside with them because I had just torn my ACL and had to stick to easy runs. Not getting to ride with them actually bummed me out, but we all got to have lunch at the same time which was nice cause I got to sit next to Joe. It was all light-hearted really, perhaps with a twinge of me keeping my guard up and not wanting anything to start since I didn’t truly know Joe’s status or if he was a decent man.
Then Joe got switch to my C Crew. He was not a leadman in his Miner 3 program, so this wasn’t his job, but he started to bring in the end-of-shift blast roster that showed all the Miner 3 personnel clear out of the mine so I could blast the rounds safely before going home. He gradually more often would find these small ways to see me at work (I found this out later).
It didn’t much feel anything other than us knowing each other and having mutual things in common, a friendly face. We started having short conversations when he’d drop his rosters off to me. We would laugh, have little quips back and forth about me being older, normal work-appropriate stuff. He took me off guard once when I was visiting with his bosses in the Miner 3 beat room and he came up behind me to go in and said “Hey Pretty Girl”. He said something one time along the lines of being interested, and however serious he was or wasn’t, I immediately tried keeping my walls up by matter-of-factly retorting that he could not possibly be interested in me, and that I would bet he’s more into short blondes since nearly all guys like him, in my experience and luck, do seem to be. He stared at me wide-eyed and looked a little guilty and said “well...you’re not wrong…". It kind of threw the conversation in a different direction at least. I don’t remember the rest, but felt sort of bad about not letting him finish what he was saying. We still chatted at work, and things carried on fine and dandy for a few months of him in the Miner 3 program on my crew.
In March of 2021, I was having a really rough rotation at work where everything got worse and stressful for me. I felt secluded with what was going on and trapped that I couldn’t defend myself. I went out my first night off and had some drinks by my lonesome and walked home. The next morning, I was feeling like crap, still stressed of course with a slight hangover. I woke up later since I got to sleep in. I was awake for about 30 minutes and doing nothing, sitting there drinking orange juice. I get a message out of the blue from Joe saying he was in town and had just finished getting his hair cut and asked if I wanted to grab lunch while he waited for Drake to get to town. I figured, yeah sure, I’m hungry and food would probably do me some good. So I agreed and he picked me up.
We discovered that everywhere was closed until 11am. So we found a bench and sat for almost an hour. Joe asked what was going on at work and I filled him in. I really appreciated that he was there, and actually listened. I also felt that I could trust him, which was surprising because I have a hard time with that. We went in once they opened and ordered lunch. As I stuff my face full of BBQ chicken wings I foolishly decided on getting, Joe informs me mid-bite that one should never order BBQ on a first date. I stop and look up at him and ask him “THIS is a date?!” He laughs without an answer and we joke about if I am just oblivious to my surroundings or have the balls to order BBQ without caring about what he thought.
As he is dropping me off at my house, he invites me to be his date to a wedding a month out. I said I couldn’t that day since I was already working by filming a wedding that day. (Found out that it was the same wedding, and we eventually went together the best we could with me working it and him being a groomsman.) I invited Joe inside and we sat on my couch all awkwardly and watched Brooklyn 99 while waiting for Drake. Joe asked me to go with him to the shooting range the next day, I agreed.
At the shooting range was Joe and I, and his whole family. So I got thrown right into the ringer with meeting them. It was fun though, shot some, went to his sister’s house for dinner after, then my house for more Brooklyn 99. That’s where we finally admitted liking each other. Our relationship took off after that.
Joe has his own cute stories and views about me when he first saw me, when discovered I was the one who rode the motorcycle parked outside of work, and while we were getting involved with each other over those months. But I’ll skip including all those in this post, just keep it to my experiences.
Since then, Joe and I have had so many adventures together. Yes, I know we have not been together for long, not by a long shot. For us, it’s one of those ‘when you know, you know’ type of things. We get along so very well, and communicate about all we can and take opportunities to talk about our issues calmly. We love learning about each other and simply can’t get enough of the other’s company.
I knew early on that it felt right. I have made mistakes in my past that I’ll always live with and struggle to forgive myself for. I have learned the hard way from them. But, I feel that it bitter sweetly has helped me grow closer to someone than I thought was possible. I am thankful that person is Joe. As with all things in life, one wonders if the decisions they make are the right ones in the long run or will screw them over in the end. Any and all decisions have potential to change, that is life, and sometimes you could never anticipate the outcome turning south. I have thought a lot about a future with Joe, if we were compatible enough, or if I know him enough. I feel a few doubts are good to process through to ensure you’re not just blinded with infatuation, sort of a way to keep reality in check and not just ignore possible problems. I know no one is perfect and I wanted to assess what flaws I can and can’t deal with because I don’t think it’s very healthy to ignore issues for the present just to try making someone change for you in the future.
From what I have experienced about Joe…he treats me right, he really loves who I am deep down, he enjoys my company, he doesn’t put me down, is willing to do new things with me, thinks my cooking is good, lets me help him, asks for my opinion on things, he doesn’t make me worry about what he is doing behind my back and stays open with me, he’s already compromised on a few things that shows me he is capable of it, and for a dude he seems to be fairly in tune about how I am feeling or what I need. All these things and more give me peace of mind about the decision that I do want to be with him. That I can tell he is a good man.
Once I got close to him and was sure about us, I started to ask him when he was going to keep his promise to me that he’d marry me. It took me slightly longer them him to trust and be as open as he was. Which is weird because it’s only been a short time together, but he was all in by the end of the first week as a couple. He told me early on that he loved me and that I was it for him. I’ve felt that he meant it ever since. You can’t put a time frame on love, I suppose.
He kept his promise.
I have had my tattoo sleeve sessions scheduled since January, and the first sessions were August 18th and 19th. The tattoo shop is all the way up in Kalispell Montana, about 7 hours away. Joe and I have been planning for a couple months to make a little trip out of it during our 5 days off work. We hauled up our sports bikes up on the new trailer we bought together. We got there late on the 16th and slept in a little sleeper cabin 20 miles from Glacier National Park. I tried really hard and failed to get us two passes and tickets for Going-to-the-Sun Road in the Park so that we could ride around all day the 17th, but with the ‘pandemic’ restrictions on everything I got robbed out of every opportunity to get any (don’t try to buy selling out tickets on your phone because it won’t work, use a PC, their ticketing system is asinine). So the only way we could enter the Park without these passes and tickets was to get past the entry gate before 6am, or after 5pm.
So early on the 17th we rode to the park and barely made it in before 6am. One inside, we were home free. But the entire day’s weather was honestly pretty crappy. It was overcast, sometimes foggy in higher elevations, wet and rainy all day long, and cold especially from the wind chill while riding. It was a very moody day.
Our plan was to have my sister, Macy, who is a professional photographer, take couple photos of us in the park with our bikes. Macy already had a few shoots and a wedding scheduled in Glacier this week, which was crazy lucky for us that she was around the area the same time we were. Thing was, she was supposed to show up after 5pm on the 17th, and we were planning on hanging out all day in the park to wait for her since we had nothing else to do. But, once Joe and I arrived at St Mary’s on the other side of the Going-to-the Sun Road, we came up with a new plan since we were wet and freezing to death. We decided that we would head back over the pass to where we started, go get Chick-Fil-A in Kalispell (it’s the only one in Montana, so it’s a must!), and wait until after 5pm for Macy to be around. We wanted to be warm.
We walked from the gate parking lot to St Mary’s where we bought a breakfast at a store, and useless hand warmers and ponchos for the ride back. We walked back to our bikes and rode back the way we came. These clear, plastic ponchos were such a joke and fell apart nearly immediately, whipping in the wind behind us. They only kept our front semi-dry, which was pointless since we were already soaked. We were desperate, okay? We got back on the west side of Logan’s Pass and were riding along the straight-ish stretch on the opposite side of Mt Oberlin. It wasn’t too foggy during this section, and I kept looking at Oberlin’s jagged peak, thinking it was epic. So I hand motioned to Joe and pointed at it so he could admire it, too. He looked over at it and then motioned for us to pull over. Since we were on our motorcycles, we were able to squeeze into a space that cars can’t fit in along the rock face the highway bordered.
Right above my bike was this little rock ledge that Joe had me set my phone on, very convenient. I started recording to cool screen shot photo later on, we have done this a few times to make taking a photo easier. We walked out to the cliff side and stood on the rock/brick road barrier. He faced the other way to, I assume, adjust something on his jacket. I held his backpack so he wouldn’t fall.
He turns around and says, “ You know how much you mean to me, right?”. I then gathered that feeling of maybe he was about to propose. I always thought he would at least have Macy there to capture the moment, so I didn’t expect it right then and there. Besides, we were still wearing our helmets and clear plastic trash bag ponchos, which by after this many miles in them had ripped into smithereens even though we stopped once to tie into more knots to try and save the integrity of them and stay a teeny bit ‘dryer’. So I was surprised he would pull this move without letting me look acceptable first. I put my helmet against his, looked into his eyes, and nervously asked, “What are you doing?”. He said my full name, and knelt down on one knee and asked me to marry him. Meh. Just kidding, ‘meh’ is an inside joke between us. I was kind of in disbelief that it was happening not how I imagined. But I was happy and said yes. And with that, he put a ring on my finger. It was one of those silicone ones. The real one was in the mail and just two days late by the time we left home. When we left for our trip to Kalispell I wanted to leave before noon, and Joe made us late by ‘running an errand’ to Ace Hardware for the bike’s trailer wheel chocks…turns out he didn’t get the ring in the mail in time, so he said he was at Ace when in reality he drove up to the city really quick to get the silicone one he gave me in the Park.
We then booked it out of there and rode to where it was warm and tasted like Chick-Fil-A. We had been riding out in the wet and cold for 10 hours straight by the time we got back inside our sleeper cabin. I just kept looking at him riding ahead of me and felt really content, despite the cold, wet-ass weather.
We spent a couple hours chilling until Macy showed up. We drove in her car back to the Park and took some nice photos together before it got too dark. We all went out to dinner after and I got ready for the tattoo sessions the next couple days.
Even though being engaged is a label on a relationship, and it’s a step forward and feels slightly different, all that matters in the end to me is that I am with someone I love. We are ‘together’, whatever level of commitment it’s at, that’s all that matters to me.
What a day. So happy and excited for my future with Joe. All the adventures we will keep having!