Our Happy Ever After...

Her Story: I saw him from across the street. We were outside a Buckhead restaurant all the college kids frequented. It was January 2011. He was definitely my type: tall, dark hair, and handsome. I had some liquid courage so I went right up and gave him my number. It was late so my friends were ready to leave and we parted ways. Fast forward over the next two weeks I was busy with my last semester of undergraduate school (finishing up at Georgia Tech, Go Jackets) so I forgot about this lovely stranger. I received a series of sweet, long texts about artists and authors and an invitation to attend his friend's concert. I was hesitant at first, but by the second phone call I figured he'd earned his chance. We met for coffee at a Starbucks. Unbeknownst to me this was a test which I guess I passed and so thirty minutes into conversation he invited me to join him and his law school friends for trivia the same evening. Ever since then we have been inseparable. Andrew is my best friend and we have grown very close over our eight years together. We have always supported each other through our career aspirations: his at law school, mine at medical school and now onto the next chapter together in Atlanta while I embark on a new adventure with my residency! We are so excited to celebrate this next phase in our lives with all our family and friends!

His story: Is Anamaria an outlaw? More more than less. Remember that in January ‘11, Atlanta was a frozen wasteland. If you wanted better boots or a warmer cloak you had to take them off a corpse. You didn’t know where you were or how to get back home and your friends did not know your name, yet here he comes, shouting for you to form up, to make a line, to stand your ground: and the night came down on you, faceless men clad all in steel, and the iron thunder seemed to fill the world. And here comes Anamaria, floating over the snow banks, smiling, charming, generous of phone number. It didn’t take me long to put that number to use, we settled on a date, and her trivia contributions were positively substantial. I narrowly avoided disaster when I questioned her take on the Lebron James Decision. (If we want to cringe together, I can confess that the phrase “superficial understanding” may have left my lips. (In mitigation, she had said something about the Chicago Bulls burning his jersey . . . What?)) In the end, the icy cast her face took on lasted only for a moment, and we moved to happier topics. And that night was much like the year and years that followed: sometimes challenging, but always also easy. I’m glad at what we’ve built together, and that we’ve gotten to share it with all of you. I’m glad too that some of Anamaria’s happy-go-lucky has rubbed off on me as we carom—maybe heedlessly, but never unmoored—into the future.