Carson and I matched on Bumble during the pandemic a week before Derecho 2020. We hit it off immediately, but then I didn't hear from him for 4-5 days. I was pretty bummed and figured I was getting ghosted once again. Little did I realize, Carson didn't have electricity or cell service during that time secondary to the storm. He messaged me as soon as he could, and we set up our first date a week or so later. At the time, Carson was putting in 10+ hour days helping clean up the city of Cedar Rapids. He was borderline delirious from exhaustion, but his excitement for our date kept him going strong. During our first date, I think we both had the feeling that we were staring into the face of forever.

Carson informed me that we would be celebrating our recent one year anniversary by going on a lunch date at Kent Park. He had secretly requested this day off at least two weeks in advance, but made it seem like he had requested it off last minute the day before. After we indulged in our charcuterie and fruit picnic, he handed me a wrapped gift. Carson had a wooden memory box made. It had both of our names and the date we officially started dating engraved on the top. Inside of the box were 12 envelopes, each containing a notecard with a written memory from each month we had been together. Each started with "The month where...." When I looked up, Carson handed me an actual card, which had yet another envelope inside of it. After reading the contents of the card, I opened the last envelope; it was for the month of September. It read "The month where Carson proposed." I sat there puzzled, thinking Carson was telling me that he would be proposing sometime NEXT month. It had slipped my mind that it was NOW September. When I looked up from the index card, Carson was down on one knee.