Unique Proposal

"There is too much in this life for me. I can't do it all. I can't learn it all. I only realized this recently. I realized it too late for me to change my overarching life goals.

"I've been doing everything by myself for so long. It is incredibly rewarding. But it is heart-wrenching at times.  I think I've already done so much, but I know that I am essentially ignorant with all the ways that a life can be lived. I know I won't be able to do, learn, see, experience everything. You must understand, right? How it feels to want more?

"Which is why I think the most logical action for me to undertake at this time--and hopefully you can see not only the logic but the mutual, simplistic pleasure of such an endeavor--is to ask you to marry me. I trust you will respond affirmatively?" 

At this point he presented to me a ring. Or rather, a wedding band. It was plain. But also beautiful. I have never been a person to think about an answer for more than a few seconds, so I said yes, equally swayed by his words and a proposal reduced to its simplest components: A question. A metal object to put on an arbitrary finger. 

This is how I married a man who I had not been dating. It seemed to make sense, in retrospection. Had I been one to demand we date first, he would not have been interested in me anyway.

Independence.

I had it then. I have it now.