Elaine and I made a promise to each other today. We made a promise about where we want our relationship to go. We made a promise about what we want out of our lives and how we each see the other in that picture.

We both know that it is going to take time to gain confidence that we can both keep this promise. We both know that life isn't always easy and doesn't always go to plan, and it takes time to ensure that a promise like this can stand up to the vicissitudes of mundane fortune. We plan to put in that time and the effort it takes to build a really solid foundation. Right now we are both working to become the people we need to be both separately and together, and some of that has been very difficult to do and there is more hard work to come. We don't know how long it will take, but we both know why we want to. This a promise to stay on the same path to the same end.

There is a word for binding to this kind of solemn promise, but like so many things in these modern times it rarely gets used the way it used to be meant anymore.

We're engaged.