We “met” over ten years ago, and the first time we had a conversation was actually on Facebook. We shared a mutual friend, Ryan, who I had known my entire life and Taylor served in the Army with. Somehow, the two of us ended up as “friends” online. I was *not sober* and was dancing with a college friend in her living room to Creed at 1am and I saw Taylor was online. I’m not sure why I decided to message him, but I’m glad I did. At the time, Taylor lived in GA and I lived in CO. Taylor came to visit me at CU Boulder after about 2 months of every day texting and Skype calls (yes, our relationship pre-dates FaceTime). That was the first of many round trip flight purchases, and it was immediately clear that we were meant to be in each other's lives. Our long-distance romance eventually took a break, but we kept a little corner of our hearts reserved for each other. It turns out that a few years apart was just the setup for the comeback of a lifetime. I eventually moved to Charlotte, NC and about a year later got a text from Taylor asking if I would be visiting my family in GA any time soon. We ended up getting dinner on Valentine’s Day 2020 (total accident lol) and Taylor left for an overseas contract deployment two days later. We kept in touch while he was overseas and he was eventually sent home early due to COVID. It didn’t take long for us to decide we owed it to ourselves to give us a shot, and Taylor moved up to Charlotte a few months later. We moved to Colorado together in 2022 and bought our first home together in Littleton. Taylor proposed on July 5, 2024 in our favorite mountain town, Crested Butte, surrounded by Colorado wildflowers and mountain views. "You're my best friend, and it's been a long time coming. Will you marry me?" Long story short, it's been over a decade, Colorado to Georgia, North Carolina to Iraq, a long-distance induced break up, and a global pandemic... but we made it, and it's about time we make forever official.