It was 2003. We had just graduated 8th grade and were in the beginnings of Summer before high school. At the behest of our mothers, some friends and I signed up for a mission trip to work with migrant families in the sun-soaked fields of Skagit Valley. Matt was a kid from Miami spending the season with his family, also attending the trip at the decree of his mom and uncle Joe.

We spent the rest of that Summer getting into benign shenanigans that most young dumb kids do. Drinking in parks, sneaking out to hang in basements, swimming in the lake at 3am. And then it was over. Matt went home to Miami, school started, and our lives settled in our respective cities. We kept in touch via AIM, the lifeline to all social lives back in those days.

A year later Matt moved to Seattle. And as good Catholic kids do, went on a few more mission trips in June, this time to rural Mississippi. We made friends, had one hell of a time on Beale Street in Memphis, and continued the fun in the immediate weeks thereafter. As time went on, our lives diverged and time together became increasingly sparse.

Years went by. I had boyfriends. Matt had girlfriends. Matt moved away. I stayed in Seattle. We kept in touch. Our lives operated within a multiverse on two completely different wavelengths, but from time to time managed to cross paths. Sometimes by chance, but most of the time on purpose.

Then it was 2016. Matt was back in Seattle after a stint in Portland. I had just moved to Ballard a few blocks from where he lived. Newly single and living alone, I’d invite him for dinner or call him for walks when my liberating solitude felt a bit too isolating. At the time it was more often than I would have liked to admit. It wasn’t because I was lonely, but it was because I liked having him around. And it was different than the times before, as though I was meeting someone I’d known forever for the very first time.

And just like that, a few months later, we were us. Fulfilling the prophecy Matt’s Uncle Joe had made since the days we’d first met, something I was adamant would never, ever, happen. Looking back on it, we were always in love. Inner reason and extraneous circumstance just protracted our timeline in realizing it. So here we are, closing yet another chapter and beginning a new one. Same wavelength, same universe, same love. Together this time, and this time forever.