Forever and Always

I have always hated stairs. An interesting aside, I warrant that, but it is a true fact; more importantly, it is a fact necessary to understand just how special my fiance is. Since I was a young kid, I have played sports competitively. With sports, of course, comes soreness, and with soreness comes a distinct disdain for stairs. Each step is a reminder of the toll your body has taken, and during my years in college athletics, I avoided stairs like the plaque; that is, I avoided stairs like the plaque except for the night of September 25th, 2019. On the night of September 25th, 2019, I made the decision (correctly, might I add) to go sign up for an honor council hearing in college where the lead investigator was a young, soft-spoken brunette with the most contagious dimple-laced smile I had met a semester earlier in a global health class. You see, I knew I had to talk to her during this class, but we sat rows apart and a chance never arose. Flash forward to the night of September 25th, and the timing felt right; my plan was simple: get there early and sit in the seat next to where I knew she would be assigned. It was foolproof, except, as a result of my early arrival, I was asked to take a seat outside the conference room to ensure the accused students didn't speak to one another. My plan was ruined. Or, so I thought. While I didn't get to sit next to Investigating Justice Patrick, I knew one more thing about the night's procedure that might bode well for me. After the investigating justice is done, they have to go upstairs to the fourth floor and shred the evidence. As I sat outside after the hearing, I toiled with how forward it would be to follow her upstairs and ask if she needed a walk home. Quickly, I figured the answer must surely be "too forward," but as my foot struck the edge of the first step downward, an overwhelming feeling that I couldn't let the opportunity to speak to the most beautiful woman I had ever seen slip by me yet again, I pivoted and began to climb the stairs. As it turns out, Amelia did want someone to walk her home that night, or, at the least, she wanted me to walk her home. We meandered home that night, talking about everything we could think of; that conversation turned into a first date, that date into a romance, and that romance into the most meaningful relationship of my life, all because of a step.

I, on the other hand, love stairs. Thinking back on all the times I’ve used stairs over the years, it is easy to pick my top two favorite trips, both of which occurred in Mercer’s historic administration building. The first was the night Carver and I truly spoke for the first time. Walking down those steps with him after the honor council hearing, I felt so full of excitement and hope. I knew in that conversation that Carver was going to be an important person in my life, but at that point I didn’t realize how important. However, when I took my other favorite trip on those stairs, I knew how important Carver was going to be in my life, and this was confirmed by Carver asking me to marry him that day, January 22, 2022. I was on the stairs in the Mercer administration building due to the most thoughtful scavenger hunt Carver devised, taking me to all of the important places in our relationship. At every stop on the way Carver had for me a beautiful note memorializing the place in our relationship and two white roses. The trip down memory lane was so sentimental and beautiful. Some of my favorite stops were the classroom we first saw each other, the tennis courts where I watched Carver play, and, of course, the step Carver turned around on when he decided he was going to ask to walk me home that night. Walking on those stairs again, thinking about how much we had grown and how much we will grow throughout the rest of our relationship, was one of my favorite moments of my life. The fact that it was followed by the love of my life proposing made it so much sweeter. I cannot wait to spend the rest of my life making my best friend, the kindest most loving person I know, walk up stairs with me.