"And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."

It was in an American Literature class that brought us together. With the both of us being shy by nature, it took us a while to actually start talking to one another. After a few weeks of casual text conversations where we talked about our hobbies, interests & mostly our dogs, he did something special one day that caught my attention. After class had wrapped up, Ben & the other three students exited out of the door to the right. I, however, walked out and to the left, and started walking to my car by myself. It was about 10 seconds later when I heard someone running, and then noticed a pair of Vans sneakers that were now walking along side of mine. I looked up to see Ben casually smiling at me—acting like he didn't just run to catch up with me when he realized I had not walked with the rest of the group!

I would like to say that Audrey and I had a whirlwind romance from the first time we laid eyes on each other, but this was not quite the case.   I knew from the first moment we met that there was something extraordinarily special about Audrey.  She was so beautiful, but there was also an ethereal characteristic about her that I could not quite define, a pull that I felt drawing me towards her and a feeling I had in her presence that I had never experienced before.  We began having casual conversations, bordering on flirting, and I would tip-toe around the idea of going on a date.  I was timid, I was afraid of ruining something that I felt could be so wonderful. After we met we would walk together after class and occasionally meet up to chat on campus, but it was a long time, over a year, until I actually got her to go on a date with me.  We would text a lot, and I would propose the idea of going out to eat or going to see a movie, but Audrey always seemed to be busy, or we would make plans that would fall through on her end.  I had essentially accepted that she was not interested in me in the same way that I was in her.  Yet, that feeling never went away, that seemingly magnetic pull that I felt towards Audrey only grew in magnitude over time.  So, I didn’t stop trying.  Eventually, after what seemed to me like ages of futility, Audrey did agree to go on a date with me, and now we are here. I now understand what that feeling was that I first felt around Audrey, the feeling that kept pulling me towards her all of that time.  It was the feeling of excitement for our journey ahead, the feeling of comfort in realizing that I will always have her by my side, the feeling of being in the presence of the person I will spend the rest of my life with…I just didn’t know it yet.