Free? - Entry 6

May 9, 1917

What is it about May that solicits the sound of wedding bells?

Firstly, dear Phil has finally made her decision to marry for love and accept Jonas. Then there is the much anticipated engagement between Christine Stuart and Gil. Then, of course, there's my own matrimonial matters. 

I declined Roy’s proposal.

Isn’t that crazy? I would love to cry but I think I want to laugh. Laugh that I’m finally free, laugh that I cannot believe I declined him and laugh even more because at the same time, I think I do know the truth exactly. 

Laughing is the reason exactly why I was never destined to be with that Roy Gardner. I only can't understand why it had taken me so long to realise that he does not and could not belong in my life. I was the wildflower in his field of dark roses. The richest plum pudding can be delicious for a while but you couldn't live on it, it will make you sick just as passionate poetry alone could never bind a marriage. 

But I do feel terrible, even more so than Gilbert’s proposal because, this time, I had welcomed his courtship. I wish I could have explained myself to him more plainly---and I would have, were it not for the fact that even I don't know how to elucidate my feelings. Oh, I truly pity him. His proposal had been romantic (under the pavilion where we first met!) and well expressed; I can perceive that his every word was honest and true---and yet, there was no thrill from head to toe when he took my hand and spoke them. 

During these two years, I have led myself to believe that I must be in love with him for he fulfilled every criterion of my ridiculous pipe dream lover. I only wish I had not been so foolish as to have been blinded for two entire years! Blinded by his roses and romantic flattery...if I were to write my thirteen year old self a letter, it will be concerning this. Then, I knew I would have laughed at the notion of rejecting such an utterly winsome inamorato!! It was my childish ideal that Marilla fought so hard to subdue--and rightly so. Diana had been right too. Fred Wright is no Lancelot but they belonged. 

You want to hear something funny? Since I begun my four years at Redmond, I have had a total of four proposals, three of them sincere and one a complete joke (thinking of it cheers me up already). I think I have the right to say that I have had my fair share of "The Question". I don't want to get proposed to ever again!


Ah, so what is there to do now? My Redmond years are over and I can now and forever claim that I am a B.A. When I return to Avonlea in a few days, I will no longer be simply 'Anne Shirley', but 'Anne Shirley: Bachelor of Art'. I shall spend the rest of my days as an old maid writing books in Diana's spare room...
  

Anne