I hated the Icehouse. It was overcrowded and smelled like stale alcohol on the best of days. On the worst of days, it still smelled better than the people I'd met there--the ones who comped my roommates' drinks but charged me $5 at the door. And still, I found myself there on yet another Saturday night. After my roommates were given their complimentary solo cups, I was told to go give someone in the front room $5 for one of my own. Thankfully, I did. The music playing in the front room was a band that hadn't yet become a sell-out pop act. In fact, they were still pretty "underground." Turns out, the music was playing from an original iPod (y'know, the bulky ones that aren't sold anymore?) that belonged to a fella I'd never met before. Love at first sight? More like love at first fight. Almost immediately, we started arguing. Who knew more bands? Hannah. Who'd gone to more concerts? Jake. Who had better taste in music? That's still something we fight about. After that? The Icehouse wasn't such a bad place. Soon, not only were Jake and I going to as many live shows as we could cram into a school week together, we were practically inseparable. When we weren't hanging out, we were texting. Friends started calling us "Dent-Lorde" (Jake's nickname as the "Dent Lord" and my likeness to Lorde combined). When he asked if I'd be his girlfriend, I'd already discovered I loved him. It didn't take me very long after that to fall in love. By the time he proposed, I'd already known I'd be spending the rest of my life with him. When he took me on a hike in my favorite place in the world and got down on one knee, I'd already consigned myself as his "for better or worse." Before we were the loves of each other's lives, we were best friends. Jake's my concert "yes" man. He's my personal accountant. He's my binge-watching bud. He's my constant silver lining when my skies are less than blue. And now I can't wait to make him my forever.

It's no secret to anyone who knows me that over the last decade and a half my life has revolved around music. From my original CD collection to my old school classic Ipod, I have amassed a pretty large collection of music. It wasn't long until CDs became obsolete--even Ipods were getting less and less popular. At KU, after Hannah and I had just officially started dating, she was driving us around Lawrence trying to find a good place to eat. She had driven me previous times before that, but she'd had the music picked out every time until then. This time, however, when she wanted to listen to something different, she tossed a 40-pound CD carrier (the thing is literally a brick) onto my lap and told me to pick something to listen to. The first thought that came to my mind was that this CD collection absolutely blew my classic CD collection out of the water. My little mini CD holder was nothing in comparison to this thing. That CD collection ended up being the soundtrack to our first year spent together. It was full of bands that I loved, but about half of it was made up of bands that I'd never heard of before. I always looked forward to putting in a new CD to sit in the car and jam with Hannah to. It wasn't long until I knew that I'd found someone who really was on the same level as me in all aspects, but especially when it came to music. When I think back on falling in love with Hannah, I always think back to her CDs.