Our Story
I do not feel nothing for you
Spring 2022
I'd known of Caleb ever since my friend Kaylie told me she thought we were kindred spirits and had a similar taste in music. However, I took little notice (allegedly) of Caleb besides his piercing blue eyes in the class we shared and how we’d both brought our tattered copies of “Braiding Sweetgrass” on a group camping trip to Santa Cruz Island. It was to my surprise, then, when I found myself telling him “I do not feel nothing for you” on a warm May night in Jerusalem where we were studying for the month. What started as a fast companionship in the midst of a chaotic experience had quickly become mutual intrigue. We spent those early days exploring our feelings of not-nothingness as we wandered through the streets of the Old City to the Jaffa Gate (our “official” first date), swam in the Sea of Galilee, ate too many blackberry Magnum bars, and admired the peace of families enjoying their Shabbat from the rooftops. An early reflection I had was the symmetry of that experience, thinking that it felt fitting to be in one of the oldest cities while exploring this relationship that felt like we had known each other forever. Though at the end of our month this early declaration still rang true, I wondered if the magic would still be there returning home, especially as that meant living hundreds of miles apart for the next seven months.
It’s nuanced…
Summer and Fall, 2022
I told Kat I loved her after approximately a month of us dating, which probably caught both of us off guard, and rightfully so. At the time, Kat was visiting me in San Francisco, where I was living for the summer. We had really only known each other well for a few months, and we had hardly been together in the same place for more than a couple of weeks. “It’s nuanced,” I told her. And it was. I knew deep down that I did love her; I had never felt that type of soul connection with anyone. Every moment we had together that summer confirmed it: our slow days in the beautiful SF parks, taking her to my favorite coffee and food spots, and a mini-trip to Big Sur. Even when a dead car battery stranded us in one of the most remote parts of the central coastland, I knew there was no one I’d rather be stranded with. I also knew we had a lot of unknowns ahead of us. Once fall rolled around, Kat would be off to Paris for a semester abroad. As the summer ended, the nuance of newness turned into “I love you… but it is really hard trying to build a relationship across the globe on FaceTime.” Throughout this, the words of a good friend rang in my head. “A mark of maturity is being able to hold nuance,” he had said, and so I took this advice, applied it to love, and ran with it… straight to Paris to see Kat for Thanksgiving.
What should we do next?
2023
I returned to Santa Barbara after a turbulent few months living abroad to address an even more turbulent question. “What should I do with my life?” I asked Caleb one day. He returned the best answer I could’ve thought of: “You should come to Washington with me and be a horse wrangler this summer.” It was an immediate done deal. After a few months of classes, final papers, tassels and hugging friends goodbye, we packed up and headed to Washington to spend a summer together on Davis Lake, continuing to ponder this question together. I remember having no idea where I was going next and no desire to figure it out, and was exceedingly grateful for my partner in crime to be as eager about having no idea as I was. These months of “relearning how to play” consisted of huckleberry picking, long days on the lake, waking early to take care of my pups (the horses), camping under the Washington skies, spending time with the Marll family, and learning all about the Seattle Mariners. Looking back, this summer gave us a vision of how we wanted to proceed with our lives, which was back in Santa Barbara with our community there.
My favorite and my best friend
2024
Finally, over a whole year after we started dating, our lives slowed down a little bit. We settled into our first “real” jobs in Santa Barbara: me back at Westmont and Kat at Procore. Slowly, over time, I began to notice a trend. We were establishing our own lives and work as postgrads, but there was not much separate about these journeys. We began to spend most of our time together, cooking elaborate meals and going on sunset walks at Douglas Preserve. Kat bought a bike and tried to keep up with me, while I tried to keep up with the wild adventures of the Bathtub (as Kat’s house was affectionately known). We played many contentious games of Catan, as our individual friends evolved more or less into each other’s. It was around this time that I started calling Kat “my favorite and my best friend.” We had started having conversations about the “m” word, but as we delved deeper and deeper into these conversations, it brought me immense comfort to realize that we were already each other’s life partners in the ways that mattered, we just hadn’t brought the government into it yet.
Wait, did I say yes?
April 2025
I truly don’t really remember. What I do remember is thinking how annoying it was when Caleb suggested that we leave our Joshua Tree campsite – where we’d just settled in with a deck of cards and a cold beer – to drive 30 minutes to a “cool rock area” and watch the sunset. No way. However, my boyfriend, brother, and sister-in-law all thought it was a great idea so reluctantly I returned to the car and complained the whole ride. It wasn’t until Caleb rushed me to the top of a big rock, tears filling his eyes as he recounted early moments of our relationship, that I wondered where Matt and Kate had gone. I asked Caleb “what exactly is happening here?” From there it was all a blur – beautiful words, him down on one knee, a new weight on my hand and cheering from the strangers a few rocks down – all under the bright pink desert sky. The next morning, Caleb repeatedly caught me staring intently at my hand with the new ring on it, as I confirmed with him that I had for sure said yes (I did). A few hours and (another) dead battery later, we were driving out of the park as fiancés, tearfully calling our friends and family to tell them about the start of our newest chapter.