Our first encounter was at Hillel, but we officially became acquainted in our studio art class in September. He was a senior, and the Professor's TA, and I was a sophomore. Our studio spaces were on the opposite sides of the room, and occasionally I would find an excuse to walk over to his space, to check his work out. We would chat occasionally, but never hung out one-on-one. Finally, in December he invited me to check out an exhibit at the Neue Galerie, in NYC. To this day, we call that our "first unofficial date." Since we were both busy with finals, and traveling for winter break, I suggested we communicate through email.  Unfortunately, after the holidays, we were no longer in the same class, and it became harder to find time to chat.  At this point, Aaron says he knew how I felt about him, but both of us were too timid to make a move. As the end of the year approached and his graduation day neared, I knew my days for asking him out were numbered. On April 18th 2013, he asked me if I wanted to grab some dinner in Bronxville, and I was ecstatic. I thought dinner would be the perfect moment to ask. That night I told my friends, "tonight is the night! I'm going to ask him." Of course, once again, we were both too shy and timid to take the next step. After dinner and coming home, I felt defeated and sad. My friend (Aixa), stopped me and said "No! You have to go back out there, and ask him! Come on! text him! I'll go with you!" I nervously sent a text to him, to see what he was up to, and he said he was in the Blue room listening to Big Tree, the band. We both went down there, and I spotted him. Song after song, I kept telling my friend, I'll ask, I'll ask. As the last song was playing, I went right up to him, closed my eyes tight, and whispered in his ear, "will you go out with me?" When I pulled back, I saw his blushed, smiling face, and he nodded yes.  Our first official date was April 19th, 2013. Aaron did not want to waste anymore time. 

Our fifth year anniversary was approaching and we both knew we wanted to take the next step. During this time, while Aaron was back in CA, his mother offered him her diamond. She told him, “when the time comes and you both are ready, the diamond will be here for you to use.” When Aaron shared this information with me, I was thrilled. He also shared that he wanted us to create a custom ring together. He wanted to make sure the ring I was going to wear for the rest of my life was something I truly loved. On our anniversary of five years together, Aaron and I had decided to spend Saturday recreating some of our first memories together. Our first stop was going to be the Neue Galerie, then the boats in Central Park, cherry blossom viewing, and Barney Greengrass. After the boat ride, Aaron suggested we check out the cherry blossoms. We wanted to take some photos and were looking for an area that wasn’t too crowded. Since we didn’t want people watching us that closely we walked to a smaller cherry blossom tree. As we got closer, Aaron started getting really nervous, which got me nervous and then he said, “I’ve been looking for the perfect spot to do this, but any spot will be perfect, because I love you…” On this day, April 21st, 2018, Aaron finally proposed to me. I was actually very surprised and flustered. I shed a few tears and hugged him. When I looked at the ring closely he showed me that he had engraved the date of our first official date, that way we could always remember it. Afterward, we asked one the photographers, standing nearby, to take our photos. The whole experience was surreal and magical. It happened so fast. I wouldn’t change anything.