Our story didn’t begin the way most people expect. There was no dramatic first meeting, no instant spark across a crowded room. Instead, it started quietly—almost invisibly—years earlier, when our paths brushed past each other without really even knowing. At the time, Stacie was working at Xavier in Sports Performance, going about her days, building her life, completely unaware that just across campus, Katie was finishing up her final chapter there as a student-athlete. They existed in the same place, at the same time—two lives moving in close parallel—but never quite intersecting. If you had told them then that their lives would one day become inseparable, they probably wouldn’t have believed you. Life, however, has a way of circling back. Years later, Stacie found her way back to Cincinnati. It wasn’t part of some grand plan—just one of those turns life takes that only makes sense in hindsight. Meanwhile, Katie was already rooted there, working, building her own path, unaware that something—or someone—important was about to enter her life. Then came Hinge. Out of all the people in all the places, we found each other there—two familiar strangers finally meeting for the first time. There was something easy about it from the start, something that didn’t need overthinking. Our first date was on January 2, 2022, at Emma’s Wine Bar—a beginning that felt symbolic in its own quiet way. A new year, a new connection, a first step into something neither of them could fully define yet. It wasn’t flashy or over-the-top. It didn’t need to be. It just felt… right. We like to joke that we went on two more dates after that. And then, somehow, we never stopped. What started as a first date turned into a second, then a third—and before we knew it, we were in what we now call a “four-year-long fourth date.” Because that’s what it feels like. Not a series of starts and stops, not a relationship marked by milestones and labels, but one continuous, unfolding moment that began the day we sat down together and never really ended. And on January 2, 2026—exactly four years after that first date—another chapter began. At a spot overlooking the city where we met, a place that had quietly become ours over time, we sat together like we had so many weekends before—talking, laughing, and looking out over the Cincinnati skyline and the river below. It was one of those places where time seemed to slow down, where conversations stretched effortlessly, and where everything felt grounded and certain. It was there, in a place filled with memories of all the ordinary, meaningful moments we had shared, that Katie asked Stacie a question that changed everything—and at the same time, nothing at all. Because in many ways, we had already found our forever on that first date. Some stories are about finding someone new. Ours feels more like finally meeting someone who was always meant to be there—and choosing each other, again and again, ever since.