"In one indescribable instant, your heart will speak the truth." Those who have been fortunate enough to know true love will recognize the moment that their whole world changed. The indescribable instant where your heart speaks the truth that your mind can not refute: that your life will be incomplete without her. For me, this revelation struck, of all places, in a hot tub in nowhere, Arkansas while on an impromptu cabin trip with some of my best friends and, entirely unbeknownst to anyone, the woman I would someday be sharing my life with. From the moment we met at a pit stop on our group's way to Heber Springs, her timeless beauty and radiance made even the most podunk McDonald's in Bald Knob, Arkansas feel like the French Riviera couldn't hold a candle to it. Her smile was like the joyous plucking of a harp; her laughter the most melodious song I had ever heard and couldn't wait to hear again and again. Though this first impression shook me to my core, it wasn't until extemporaneously breaking out into a duet of "You Can't Stop the Beat" from Hairspray in a hot tub in the freezing cold that I knew that her song was like a panacea for my ailing soul. To say I had given up on love before this moment would be an understatement but in this indescribable instant I saw the vision of a world where love could truly conquer all that came before it. In the wake of this earth-shattering first contact, I struggled to reconcile the life that I could lead with the life I was leading and ultimately, due to low self-esteem and great self-doubt, I made the decision not to pursue her, knowing that her path was much greater without me in it. To quote John Green, "If people were rain then I was a drizzle and she was hurricane." While the timing was imperfect, she had planted a seed of longing in me that would bear fruit every time we would sporadically see each other through the long spans apart. Whether listening to karaoke in a dive bar that tripled as an arcade and school gymnasium, or enduring the most deafening clubs on Beale Street, each conversation would last hours but feel so achingly short, tinged with the understanding that each parting could last months or perhaps even years with only my memories of her to salve the wound. Thankfully, our lovelorn tale reached a turning point when, emboldened by the dawning of a new year, an impulsive purchase of Shen Yun tickets led to a whirlwind series of dates that would push us closer and closer towards revealing our true feelings for each other. Each date was life-affirming, like a slow-burning therapeutic candle that purified the world around it, leaving me feeling lighter than air, but it wasn't until, fittingly enough from where we first met, a midnight McDonald's run that we shared our first enchanting kiss. It is with no exaggeration that I proclaim that I still feel the raw electricity of that indescribable instant coursing through my body and all of the love and life that has followed is owed to that moment that everything in the world just fell into place. From the first time we said "I love you" to the misty haven of the Crystal Shrine Grotto where she exclaimed "Yes!" to marriage and all the baby kittens we adopted in between, every moment has been enriched by the love and light that only a truly spell-binding woman like Lindsey can bring to this world. So to the best smile, best laughter, and best cat mother I will ever have the pleasure of knowing, I can't wait to marry you and show the world the love that we've known in our hearts all along.