It happened through chance, with so many things falling into place before the right situation coalesced into meeting the woman I had been waiting for. I chose the University of Mary Washington as my alma mater, I had to find a replacement roommate, which led to a newly formed friendship. Then I had to find a new place and stumbled upon a house just next door to the hangout house, Casa Verde. This all played out for that one fateful night. I had traveled back to Northern Virginia for a celebration dinner with family. After some plans fell through, I decided to head back where I knew one of my roommates was having a friend from class over, so I thought, “huh well at least I could hang out with a few people.” Thus, I made the 50-mile drive back to my house to have a good time. I didn’t know it, but something was about to happen. When I arrived home, I could hear music and laughter from the driveway and felt elated knowing it was going to be a fun night. I walked in the door and turned the corner past the stairway, I saw my roommate and the most beautiful woman sitting in our living room. I stopped, speechless, and was lost in the friend’s smile. It was the first thing I noticed about her, how radiant her smile was, and how her laugh made me grin. “Uhhhh, hi, I’m Patrick,” I said awkwardly. Then she introduced herself as Emma, and from then on, we were talking the rest of the night. At first, it was a meaningless small talk, but it didn’t matter. We could have been talking about dirt for all I cared; I was enamored by anything Emma said. We talked about music, family, food, school, work, and everything in between. We discussed what we wanted to do, and what our life was like. We talked and talked until the sun started to peek above the horizon. I felt something that I had never felt before; warmth in my body and soul, and I knew I found someone special. And every day since then has only confirmed my beliefs from that fateful night. I had found my wife.

One evening in mid-March of 2015, I was hanging out with a friend of mine that I met in class. I knew she had two other roommates, whom she described to me as nerds. What I didn’t realize was that one of them would soon become my future husband. Neither of them were planning to be home, so we decided on a girl's night. However, plans quickly changed as we discovered that two friends next door were looking to turn this night into a party, a typical Friday night in college. Little did I know that this would alter the course of the night. We were all enjoying ourselves, when my friend's roommate happened to walk through the door. Everything else stopped around me as I watched him from the corner of my eye, (trying not to make it obvious that I was gazing at him.) I was so entranced by his suave look. Something struck me about him that I couldn't quite figure out. All I knew was that I just had to speak with him. My attention quickly turned from the rest of the party to this charming fellow. We started talking about our tastes in music and were soon emersed in each other's presence, not realizing how much time was going by or what else was going on around us. I was quickly learning that we were very much in sync with our interests and values. I was in awe with everything I discovered about him. Hours went by as I finally figured out the reason why I was smitten. Somehow at the moment when he walked through the door, I knew something special would happen. It was fate. The fact that we both grew up in Arlington, within minutes of each other, often with our worlds colliding without even realizing it, had to mean something! Our worlds even coincided in Fredericksburg without knowing. At one point, Patrick was living in an apartment complex, where I typically spent time with another friend of mine. Now my heart is full that fate led us to each other, and that we get to spend a whole lifetime together.