Welcome

Before masks, before social distancing, before spending fifteen dollars to have five dollars of food delivered; Matt used to host meet ups at a quaint local theme park with universal aspirations. It was not Fun Spot. ...or Gatorland. or...okay, so there's a lot of theme parks in the Orlando area. On the second anniversary of hosting meet ups, Matt and Steph met for the first time. There's photographic evidence. Matt took the picture even. Matt forgot. A few months later Matt hosted another meet up. This time a brunch that takes Tu Tu Tango. Once again Matt had no memory of awkwardly being reminded that he and Steph had met before. Surely the third time would be the charm, right? Sort of. On a dark and humid night full of artificial fog and surround sound screams Matt made his move and REMEMBERED. Ok, so maybe not a move but at least I remembered, stopped referring to myself in the third person and Steph has graciously agreed to remind me of this for all time. A lot of awkwardness followed, but a lot of sweetness began when both of us caught a handful of tangled beads at a Mardi Gras parade. We jokingly referred to them as our kids and we’d work out custody later. A couple weeks later Steph arranged trading custody in downtown Orlando following a concert at SeaWorld, her car was stuck from high crowds. At the end of a night of drinks, awkward dancing and slickly photobombing strangers I gave her a ride back to her car and somewhere in the world is a parking lot sweeper that saw our first kiss at 3 o’clock in the morning. That was just the start of our story. After a few commercial interruptions where neither of us were really ready, several months later…and once again in downtown Orlando sparks flew anew and we’ve never looked back.