Life is filled with the most unexpected surprises. If I were to map out every possible course I thought my life could take after college, high school, or even middle school, I can guarantee with almost one hundred percent certainty that no path I could ever think up would match what has come to be my actual reality. But here I am, living in Minneapolis with Dan Bloomberg. It all started in the year 2002 with the boy who was in my eighth grade Language Arts class. The boy who was an altar server with me and who burnt me the Wheatus CD when I thought it was really cool that he wore some kind of weird tiki necklace every day. The kid whose football number I wore on the sweatshirt I made for the Spartan Bowl. The person whose name I mentioned briefly in a journal entry dated Dec. 20, 2003 under a list titled “Guys I Would Go Out With”. The guy I never wanted to be put in a group with in tenth grade Honors English because he wouldn’t do any of his work until the night before a project was due. In a way, I guess you could say we grew up together. And then we went to college. In December of 2011 (post college graduation and having found our “real” jobs in Columbus and Minneapolis), we ran into each other in a bar while home for Christmas. We talked briefly about life and music and had our first conversation in at least four and a half years. It was pleasant. In April of 2012 we met on a whim in Chicago for a brief weekend to see Death Cab for Cutie and Bassnectar. A strange juxtaposition of bands with what felt like a strange and unexpected juxtaposition of two people. The trip was planned in about 15 text messages sent over the course of maybe two months. It was silly and spontaneous and wonderful.

Months and months and almost a year passed after Chicago. We went our own ways and did our own things and lived wonderfully with brief text messages here and there. But I suppose there must have been some sort of magical magnetic force that was pulling us together, and in February 2013, Dan came to see me in Columbus. We had a miraculous weekend and finally thought that maybe despite the fact that 750 miles separated us geographically, we should probably start dating. So we did. A little while later, I moved to Minneapolis. And a little while later Dan and I took a trip to Barcelona. And on March 22, 2016, he asked me to marry him. I said yes.