“They slipped briskly into an intimacy from which they never recovered” -F. Scott Fitzgerald

I found it at the perfect time. Isn’t that what they say, that timing is everything? He was quiet, and what little things I knew about him weren’t the best. He’d drawn cards from a pile no one should ever touch. And me, well, I’d gone all in on another relationship and had come up short, in the Fall.

It wasn’t love at first sight. There were no instant feelings of, “well maybe this could be forever”.  But there was a certain calm curiosity which left me always wanting more. We met a few times through mutual friends but never acted on anything. We’d share short flirty messages which wouldn’t follow through. Neither of us wanted to make the move because neither of us was sure. I’d always been the girl in a relationship, he’d always been the boy who only let someone in so far.

It took time and it took effort. You see, we were building something deeper and we had to constantly cultivate it. It was a beginning like no other beginning I have ever had. We’d open each other up and make ourselves be honest with ourselves. We would fight, but only to make one another better. We were two people who were never satisfied with just “good”, we wanted ourselves to be great.

You could say I had been waiting my whole life for this. I always thought that if I looked hard enough, love would find me again. There are people who sneak right into your life. While we’re preoccupied staring at something in the distant future, or hung up on the past, They just show up on your doorstep like, “hi there, it’s me and it’s always going to be me…”.

I was twenty when I met my soulmate. He crept in quietly through a door to my heart and made all of my past mistakes fall away. He made me realize not only who I was, but who I was destined to be. He intertwined my fingers with his and refused to let go. And just like that, there he was standing in front of me, making me love him for the rest of my life…