William and I have been together for just over 5 and a half years. What most people don't realize though is that we met almost 7 years ago! William and I first met when I was studying abroad in Paris, France. While there we hung-out a few times but, were just friends in the end. Almost a year later William reached out saying he had moved to the Bay Area to study abroad for the semester and that we should catch up. Little did he know that 4 days before he texted me I had moved to Florida to spend a semester working at Disney World. Over the next 5 months we talked on and off and we both started to realize that maybe we wanted to be more than friends. Once I returned to California we quickly met up and became inseparable almost immediately. We spent that first summer traveling everywhere. We visited South Lake Tahoe, Monterey, Santa Cruz, went camping, skydiving, and even spent a weekend in Las Vegas. It was pretty clear to both of us that this was more than just some summer fling. Since then we have been long distance twice, visited over 5 countries together and moved across the country to where we now live in New York City. We have lived in NYC together for over 2 years and love our little apartment next to the Met. We frequently take walks through Central Park with our golden retriever Redd who has brought us so much joy. We know our story is just getting started and we cannot wait to see what the future holds.