Each individual is brought into this world with a unique set of characteristics. These include our strengths, blind-spots, circumstances and a will to love and be loved. The pursuit of expressing selfless love and having it reciprocated is not a goal or desire, its instinctive and eternally purposeful. With so many billions of combinations, to find the 'right one' is not like a finding a needle in a haystack at all, because if it was, we would find our partner on our own with no help, as if digging around for a lost object. In reality, the right one comes along through divine intervention only when we are ready. Love is a complicated language unspoken with billions of dialects. The right pair can communicate fluidly and freely, even if they grew up speaking different languages.

To reverse engineer our relationship from our wedding day, you’d have to go back over five years ago and travel over to Venezuela. After growing up in South America and graduating high-school, Jahaziel felt called to get out and experience something new. She spent a year in Montreal, Canada and attended culinary school. After some time, she came to the conclusion that it was time to try something else. As some time passed, she began to be sold on an idea that sounded crazy at the time – leaving the country again, but this time to the United States for school. I can’t imagine the excitement and anxiety that came along with such a move, but what inspires me is the determination and courage it took. The final frontier was choosing between Valencia College in sunny Orlando, Florida, or Winona State in Winona, Minnesota. I don’t know what kind of infatuation she has with cold temperatures, but I can’t say Canada and Minnesota would be my top two destinations If I chose to study anywhere in the world (thank the good lord she is much tougher than me)! She showed up in 2016 and got to work. Literally. She was a full-time student and worked full-time as a student manager at the campus cafeteria. Lucky for me, this just so happened to be the place I spent most of my time in college. One day, our mutual friend introduced us. I remember being so intrigued by her and trying to spend as much time with her as possible. We bonded over music, movies, astrology, spirituality and an intense interest in each other’s lives and cultures. Before you knew it, I had incense in my apartment and lo-fi hip hop playing while I studied. I’m surprised I didn’t have a Venezuelan flag and evil eye hanging on my door as well, because I wanted to be like her in so many ways. Everything about her made me want to be better.

Now there is some serious controversy surrounding the night where feelings were expressed through text message. If you ask me, she reached out and professed her love for me, if you ask her (or any of her friends who were there) I did the professing…. Its funny how fickle the human memory is. ANYWAY that’s just minutia, she was totally into me, that’s why she reached out! After a year of being romantic, being together without a title, being friends, and ultimately going our separate ways and growing on our own without each other for five months (again, we both have a different interpretation of that year!), I prayed, consulted all my loved ones, and got the ‘go-ahead’ to profess my love all over again. With my heart in my throat, I decided it was best I give it a shot in person. This time, I make no bones about it, I was the one pursuing! I told her how I felt, and she did something very out of character, she started to tear up, hit me and called me dumb for taking five months to tell her what she already knew! After talking to her mom and best friend, she decided to let me take her out and the rest is history! Three years later, I proposed to her on August 29th, 2020 and she said yes to a lifetime of me taking up 4/5 of the bed, eating us out of house and home and forcing her to play me 1-on-1 in nerf basketball! In exchange, I get pure marital bliss. God bless everything about her and I’m so excited for the rest of our lives and the amazing family we will have!