Those THREE FATEFUL WORDS!

I am 41 years old and in exactly 4 months minus a day or two from this day, I will be 42 years old. In that time, there have been many moments in my life when I was granted the opportunity to say exactly what I wanted to say.

There was the time when my boss' boss wanted me, a pharmacist, to make him a cup of gourmet coffee and I got to explain that the only reason he even had the audacity to suggest that I should make the coffee (in the gourmet deli located in the pharmacy where I was the chief pharmacist) was because I was a black female. I went on to point out that had I been a white, male pharmacist, [or technician for that matter], he would have waited for the deli staff to arrive and he would not even have considered asking me to undertake such a task.

Then there was the time that my son Ryan's teacher suggested that he should be put on medication for attention deficit disorder, to which I was able to submit for her consideration that a child who could lie beside his mother for two hours and read quietly to himself while she reads certainly did NOT have ADD. Furthermore, I suggested that maybe she might try to provide more of a challenge in her lesson plans so that Ryan as well as the other children in her class might feel more compelled to give her their attention.

As I said before, I have often had the opportunity to say exactly the words I have wanted to say. Even so, there is one phrase I have wanted to utter for some time ever since I first heard it spoken in one of my all-time favorite movies, "The Color Purple". Though I love this movie and have many catch phrases from it that I have utilized when the appropriate scenario presented itself, I have never been in the appropriate set of conditions for which my favorite phrase was indicated.

Well, will wonders never cease, because suddenly, and inexplicably, I find myself in just such a circumstance. Seemingly without warning and with no apparent reason except that GOD just decided that now is the time, I am finally and definitively on my way to being able to utter my favorite phrase from my favorite movie of all time. "What?", you might ask has caused the stars, sun, and moon to align themselves in such a manner to cause such an amazing opportunity to present itself. Well, it is the result of a very simple proposal. That's right folks, the PO has proposed. Even better, Ms. Just Right NOW! has said YES! And as a consequence of those two events, I will in less than one year (September 1, 2007....our wedding day) be able to utter those three fateful words in the tradition of Ms. Shug Avery before me.......

I'se Marryed Now!