Our Story
“How did you and Lucy meet?” you might ask.
While a cacophony of words come to mind—trust, lottery, dare I say FATE—the one that that always sticks is simple: Basketball. Lucy had just moved to Chicago. She hadn’t shot a basketball in over a year, but something inside her—call it chance, call it intuition—compelled her to LinkedIn message the former Yale women’s basketball (“YWBB”) player she had met at an online networking event a few months prior. Lucy: Hey! I just moved to Chicago a few weeks ago and wanted to touch base about the Women’s Sports Chicago bball league. Are you looking for additional players to join your team by chance? Haywood: Hey! Congratulations on making the move! Did you find a job you’re excited about? This message couldn’t have come at a better time because we actually are looking for one more! Haywood (YWBB Class of 2010) didn’t know it yet, but she had just been appointed Cupid to our love story.
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I introduced myself to Lucy near the hoop as basketballs ricocheted off the rim like orange fireworks. We warmed up at the same basket, sharing tidbits of information about each other between shots. Lucy played basketball at WashU, and had just finished grad school at Stanford. I told her I played at Yale, but never overlapped with Haywood (Cupid was a smidge older). Once the game tipped off, Lucy did all the things my coaches had preached throughout my career—active hands on defense, boxing out after a shot went up, always making the extra pass. But what really wow’d me was her post-game performance. My high school coach, Coach Bechtel, often said: “Always leave a place better than it was before you got there.” It was her subtle way of telling me and my teammates to pick up our freakin’ trash!
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Over a decade later, the quote echoed through my mind as I got ready to head home that Sunday morning. I took off my sneakers, put my backpack over my sweaty shoulders, headed for the gym door, and then glanced back to say goodbye to any stragglers. And that’s when I noticed it: Lucy’s hands overflowing with stranded Gatorade and Dasani bottles as she headed for the garbage bin, throwing away trash that didn’t belong to her. Our friendship progressed, but slowly. Four weeks after our first encounter, we had our first one-on-one text exchange.
And then on December 17, 2021, we had our first playdate.
That Friday night, I went over to Lucy’s place in Wicker Park. She had undergone Lasik surgery earlier in the day and needed someone to come over and keep an (unblurred) eye on her. Doctor’s orders. I figured it was a low stakes first playdate. More of a medical precaution than a test of whether or not we had what it takes to be lifelong friends.
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We had the Celtics-Warriors NBA game on in the background while we ate True Kitchen takeout and talked life. Lots and lots of life. I spewed my quarter-life existentialism from the living room couch as Lucy studied me from her armchair with the attentiveness of a clinical therapist, her blue orbs calculating me behind their protective goggles. For the weeks that followed, we did stuff that IRL friends do—one-on-one dinners, just because texts, and no shortage of voice memos. On January 1, 2022, I sent this New Year’s text to Lucy:
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By spring 2022 things began to feel different. Lucy and I continued our “playdates”—marveling at the cherry blossoms in Garfield Park, volunteering at the Chicago Food Depository, slamming harvest bowls & super green goddesses at Sweetgreen, and going for long bike rides. Lucy and I cycled from Chicago to my hometown of Highland Park, a 50-mile roundtrip on July 2, 2022. When we arrived in Highland Park, I gave Lucy a tour of the downtown area—my chiropractor’s office, the Dairy Queen, the homecare office where I worked my summers home from college. By the time we headed back to Chicago, the sun had begun its descent. That orange, 8 PM summer glow spreading overhead. As fate would have it, we arrived along Chicago’s lakefront trail just in time for the Navy Pier 4th of July fireworks show! Lucy and I pulled over and settled in the grass overlooking Lake Michigan. My right shoulder inches away from her left.
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No. No we did not have our first kiss at that moment. Instead, the fireworks erupted, and we sat side-by-side in silence, our eyes glued to the colorful night sky as we avoided even a peek of eye contact with each other. The next day, on July 3, 2022, Lucy flew to Jackson Hole for 24 hours for a friend’s wedding. Meanwhile, I spent that Sunday calling friends and family and proclaiming: “Tomorrow I am kissing Lucy for the first time!” Of course, Lucy didn't know my intentions for our Fourth of July hangout. She probably assumed we’d watch fireworks in painful, utter silence again. I had a whole plan for our first kiss: I’d buy rollerblades from Dick’s Sporting Goods on the way to Lucy’s place. I’d bring my portable karaoke machine. Then, like a scene straight outta Hallmark, I would skate to her doorstep, blasting “Joy” by Andy Grammar, and I’d take out my 99-cent Trader Joe’s card, where I’d had written a novella that essentially could’ve been six words: Will you go out with me?
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What I had not planned for—and what no one should ever have to plan for—was an unthinkable tragedy in my hometown on the morning of July 4th. A mass shooting at the annual Fourth of July parade in downtown Highland Park. Seven lives were taken, forty-eight wounded. The same exact street where Lucy and I had ridden our bikes two days prior was now wrapped in yellow crime scene tape as reporters provided the breaking news on my TV screen. As my mind tried to process the un-processable, I waited for Lucy's flight to land. I knew I still wanted to see her. I felt so lost, yet all my lostness had some sort of gravitational pull towards Lucy. Just go see her and you’ll be fine, my gut said.
At 5:45 PM, I showed up at Lucy’s doorstep in the rain
(despite Lucy's insistence that she Uber to me straight from the airport). I didn't come with any grand gesture. No rollerblades nor karaoke machine. Just me in my drenched clothes. Lucy opened the door, her face collected yet helpless. We bypassed any salutations and went straight for a hug. Holding each other in silence for forty-five minutes. Yes, a forty-five minute hug!! Over Lucy’s shoulder, the clock on the kitchen oven showed 6:30 PM. I had made a self-imposed deadline about halfway through our record-breaking hug that if it got to be 6:30 PM and we were still hugging then I was going to go in for the kiss. Now 6:31 PM, I took a deep breath. You got this, Lena. Don’t overthink it. You love her. “So are we gonna do this?” Lucy interrupted my internal pep talk. Those were the famous last words before we did it: We had our first kiss. And four years and several Splash Sisters championships later, we will say I do.
A Note from the Author:
Hi family and friends! When Lucy asked me to write Our Story for our wedding website, my mind went bonkers. How can you ask me to capture our love story in the confines of a Zola webpage? I would need a Harry Potter-length book series, five rom-com movies, and at least one impasto painting to even begin to capture all of the thoughts, feelings and moments that make up our love story to date. But as the saying goes: Happy wife, happy life. So alas, here is my attempt at writing our story to share with you all today. If you feel inclined to read beyond the confines of Zola, I’ve linked to pieces from my blog that suffice as “Enrichment Reading” to our love story.