I vividly remember looking across my gymnastics gym as I was leading stretches with my Tumble Team and seeing this handsome man with beautiful eyes talking about employment with our office manager. Never had I had someone catch my eye quite like Jason. Once he was employed, I could not get Jason out of my head (Literally-- because he taught with such enthusiasm which would make students laugh and cheer with excitement, and metaphorically--because he was always kind with the ability to make me belly-laugh and think about the world and my aspirations in a different light. As I told many of you, although I was bold enough to know I only wanted to pursue Jason, my stomach would turn thinking about telling Jason that I liked him. It was only when one of my high school students in which I privately coached said she wanted to set up Jason with her college-aged sister, that I lied and told her Jason was taken. (I actually had no idea whether Jason was dating anyone, but I knew that I instantly didn’t want anyone pursuing him other than me.)I knew I needed to tell him. Once I had psyched myself enough to tell Jason, he called me and asked if I would inform our place of business that he would be on temporary duty somewhere else for a couple of months.

My feelings never faded, and when he came back, we organically started to hang out. I just moved to the town in which he lived, and he was excited about the progress he was making to transform his house into a home. Each day, after work, I would come back to his place to talk to him, make dinner together, and study while he read until the early morning (yes, study) because together, life was exciting, enjoyable, and peaceful. Even at the beginning of our relationship, it was as if we both had double vision of each other. We could not only see each other for our current selves but also the potential of what we could be; we never missed an opportunity to encourage or challenge each other to be the best version of ourselves. This is still one of our of my favorite aspects of our relationship. We take risks to be our best selves because we know we have each other to encourage risks, push for our highest potential and comfort when we struggle. We started our relationship just enjoying one day at a time. Until one day, I was coming home from work, and I was worried that I was spending almost every night studying at Jason’s house. He didn’t seem to mind, but I was worried it may be too much of a good thing too quickly. I decided to tell Jason I was going to study at my place instead of coming over to his place. He immediately told me to come over without much explanation. I didn’t know what to think. I showed up to an empty house, but Jason showed up shortly after… with a dog. He said, “Meet Wasabi. He's ours.” From there, we were a family. Experiencing life together has been a journey, a wild ride, and the best choice of our lives. Ten years later, and we are still a growing family with now two dogs, and we could not be more excited to continue our lives together. We look forward to celebrating a love a decade in the making with an eternity to go.