star-crossed

Michael and I met accidentally and unknowingly. He had just returned from mission work in Texas and was starting his life in Atlanta; I recently moved to the city for college and a new beginning. I was sporadically attending a Georgia State house church that was hosted in his home when we met. Our first exchange was in the dark, on his porch, while looking at the night sky. We were encouraged to find a quiet spot around the house and to be alone with Christ. Turns out, I took his favorite spot on the porch. Our encounter was brief and polite, a momentary and ironic glimpse into our future that would one day be filled with a lot of stargazing. We were strangers, and it stayed that way when I left. It wasn’t until a few weeks later that Michael saw me at house church again, he asked my best friend if she could put in a good word for him. “No,” was her answer. Ash (my best friend) was our middleman, going against us right in the beginning- and now the maid of honor in our wedding. Michael was a gentleman and gave it a few weeks until he couldn’t refrain any longer and reached out to me, via Twitter dm’s (take note, Nicholas sparks). He asked me to meet up over tea and I agreed, because why the heck not. I immediately told Ash, and we devised a plan so that it would be anything BUT a date: don’t let him pay for your tea. It was almost as if the evening panned out in slow-motion. I walked up to Michael reading a book outside of a quaint coffee shop, and immediately swooned. Profile pictures do no justice, needless to say my tea was paid for. We talked and walked around our favorite city for four hours that night, and that was the beginning. We have traveled over 10,000 miles together since Michael asked me to have a DTR (determine the relationship talk) on our way home from hiking a mountain, two weeks after our first encounter. The rest is history.