The Beginning of Our Story

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To be honest, it’s hard to remember life before Matthew. He’s my best friend and without a doubt, my better half. I share bits and pieces about Matthew, but I wanted to share our story and how we got where we are now.. It’s been a long journey. Delayed gratification became a constant word in our story. 

Matthew and I have been together since December 21, 2012. A little over seven years. I feel like I basically grew up with him? We all go through stages of growth, and mine was truly magnified in the time we’ve been together. 

Our relationship is long and FULL of ups and downs, way more than I could ever put in one post, but I’d like to introduce my guy and our story.

The Beginning

I met Matthew when I was a sophomore in college. At the time, I was in a period of my life where I was FINALLY okay with being single, and honestly, I was enjoying it. I had a series of relationships in high school that left me really bruised and I needed a season of healing from them. It took a lot of trial and error, but I was in a really good place and had no interest in any sort of relationship. 

Let me preface this story by saying that we both grew up in the same county, but different suburbs outside of Nashville. We grew up about 20-25 minutes from each other, but never met until college.

A lot of my friends from high school went to another college that was about an hour and a half from where I went to school. One of my friends from high school was roommates with two of my besties from high school. Because everyone knows everyone in our town, that friend went to church with Matthew. (Lol following?) While at college, they were all introduced to each other. Thankfully October of our Sophomore year, I had a weekend planned to visit my best friends.

I remember spending the night before I left on the phone with my best friend, who was having me look up all her new friends on Facebook. She showed me him and I was thinking how CUTE he is. 

I ended up meeting him immediately getting out of my car at her apartment (big sorority t-shirt and leggings and all), and was instantly drawn to him. He ended up having plans out of town for most of that weekend (of course…. I still bug him about it ha), but we spent as much time together as we could and both could tell this was going somewhere. We spent the next couple months dating long distance. We were thankful that our home base was the same place and we would have Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks coming up. He ended up officially asking me to be his girlfriend December 21, but I remember thinking how for once I didn’t feel like I needed him to ask me.. That we were already together.

Long Distance

We spent the next two and a half years driving back and forth between each other’s colleges. In some ways, it was really special. Our weekends were sacred and it was like this glorious reunion every time we could see each other, which was as often as we possibly could. Date nights, nights in, day trips to the Smoky Mountains.. it was a dream world. However, then there were the days without him. I missed the date parties on a Thursday night. I also missed him coming over after class or having him help me put together furniture, or go to the grocery with me. Typically, I was always the third or fifth or seventh wheel. It was a constant reminder of him not being there.

We dreamed about the day that we could move back to Nashville and start our life together. We were ready. In looking back on that time, long distance was the best thing for our relationship. It was prepping us for a future we were unsure of. We had a timeline and it was the thing that gave us hope. We would graduate together, we would both start grad school, then we’d get engaged in his last year and then married a year later. Then, real life hit and we began to get bad news. He didn’t make it into PT school and therefore would have to take a gap year. Crazy enough, that also proved to be the best thing for our relationship. Funny how when you look back on things, you can see exactly why they happened the way they did?

We moved back to Nashville after graduation. Each of us lived with our families while I went to grad school and he worked during his gap year. About a year and a half after graduation, he proposed. Here is a link to our proposal story.

Matthew is the kindest soul, and would do anything for our family. He works harder than anyone I know. He loves so deeply and makes me laugh with his wit. Thankful everyday for his calm soul and his ability to bring perspective back to what matters. I’m lucky.

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