Alumni Weekend: The Proposal

I had to save the highlight of Alumni Weekend until the end. Kevin proposed to me on Friday night, ensuring that it would be one of the best weekends of my life.

Kevin and I started dating about halfway through our senior year at Mudd - right after football season ended. Although we spent a lot of time together and fell in love during our last few months in college, we had agreed that the relationship would end when college did. We would be living in different states (Colorado and Virginia) and looking for jobs. If we found work in the same city that would be wonderful, but we decided to prioritize our careers above our relationship.

After graduation I got in my car, newly single, and began the long drive home.

It took about a week for us to realize that we hadn't really succeeded at breaking up. We were still talking every day and before long we were making plans to visit each other while we continued to apply and interview for jobs. Since we were still both looking locally, we soon found jobs in our respective states.

By the fall it seemed like the long-distance thing was going to be indefinite. We broke things off again, because it seemed like a long distance relationship would be too hard to maintain. We kept in touch but focused on creating separate lives.

Eventually we realized that however hard a long-distance relationship was, not being in a relationship at all was even harder. Kevin came to visit Colorado in June, and we began seeing each other more regularly again. About a year after we'd called things off we decided to give it another go. It wasn't too much longer before I moved out to Virginia and found work in DC.

When we got back to Mudd on Friday, Danielle made a comment about the last time she'd been back at North Dorm, and I promptly stuck my foot in my mouth by reminding Kevin that the last time I'd been there we had broken up. I felt bad, but my comment did remind him to go back to the hotel and grab the ring he'd bought.

Later that night we bought beer for the current residents of the dorm and decided to play some beer pong. After we'd set up our side and were waiting for Danielle and Eric to finish pouring their beer, Kevin told me he had to show me something. He took me back behind the dorm where he said "This is where we met. It's where we fell in love. And it's where we broke up. We should never do that again." Then he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him.

In true North style, we immediately went back to play some beer pong. We lost the game, possibly because I was too excited to really concentrate on it (that's my story and I'm sticking to it). Then word of our engagement began spreading among our class.

I'm really happy we were able to tell so many people in person and celebrate with everyone. On Saturday night Danielle organized a surprise engagement party, which of course included more beer pong. The entire evening was perfectly reminiscent of the countless nights we spent playing beer pong and hanging out in North Dorm. I couldn't have asked for a more perfect engagement story.