The Story of Us.

We met in late August or early September of 2017. 

I had just moved to Boston the month before.  Having moved to a new place, city, and/or country about a dozen times in my adult life before then, I did what I needed to do: put on my brave face and go alone to social events and activities and try to figure out who my people were in this new city.

One of those activities was ultimate frisbee.  I found a pick-up game on Meetup (a great app for finding those aforementioned social events and activities in a new city!) not too far from where I lived and I thought why not, it’s worth a try! I don’t remember if we met at the first game I played with them, or maybe it was the second, but I was sitting alone on the lowest bench of the bleacher seats waiting for a critical mass of participants to arrive so we could start the game. About five seats up the bleachers from me a guy was explaining to some other guys the rules of the game.  I wish I could remember the smart-aleck thing he said that caused me to turn around and reply with an equally smart-aleck response, but after that unmemorable but clearly transformational exchange, we all introduced each other, and a friendship was born.

I remember chatting on and off throughout that game; I made comments about being new to the area, and shared I had ridden my bike to the game, so he told me about a biking event that happens about once a month in Boston called the Boston Bike Party.  I’m pretty sure we played frisbee again the next week, and said hi to each other, but it’s all hazy until a few days later, when another friend invited me to go on the bike party with her.  I showed up, and she didn’t, but this guy from Frisbee found me looking lost and alone in a sea of strangers, and gallantly rode alongside me for the majority of the bike party route! I kept telling him he can go bike with other people, but he didn’t, or wouldn’t, and he’s since told me he knew if he did that I would leave (which is true).   At that point I think we found each other on one of the socials and kept in touch, mostly around frisbee and bike stuff, while he traveled to a bike trip in Maine and I traveled on work trips to New York and Tanzania.

A few weeks later we did an event called the Ramen Ride together. It was simply a large bike ride where participants rode from one ramen restaurant to another to try all the different options. It was a super fun event, and Gideon and I rode together the whole time, along with a few other friends in our group.

(For some reason I can’t add a caption under a slide show – these are photos from that Ramen Ride! November 4, 2017)

During the Ramen Ride I remember talking about how, after so much salty broth and delicious ramen, I needed some chocolate. I’ve got SUCH a sweet tooth which will be no surprise to anyone who knows me! Anyway, he suggested we go to Burdicks because they have some really, really delicious drinking chocolate. Of course! So we went, and Burdicks goes down as our first ‘date’ or, at least, the first place we intentionally went together, without other friends with us.

Gosh, it’s fun going through my old photos! After the Burdicks night, I don’t have pics for quite awhile… We went to the JFK museum together, we went to a live music event in Cambridge, we chatted a lot, we played Frisbee, we biked, it snowed and I put my bike away for the year, I traveled the country a bit and went home for Christmas that year, and we kept chatting.

It was after New Years of 2018 we sort of became a thing – we started going out a lot, and spending a lot of time together. The thing was, I knew at that point I was moving back over to Africa in April. And neither of us wanted to commit to a long-term relationship across an ocean! So this time was especially sweet, in that there wasn’t any “I wonder if this guy is the one?” thoughts – there was only really the fact that we really enjoyed spending time together, so we did, without the pressure of trying to figure out if it was meant to be forever. Because it wasn’t, it was only meant to be a few months! It was such a fun time, without the pressure of commitment, and certainly one of the most fun seasons of my life up to that point!

The night before I left to go to Colorado and then Seattle before moving to Liberia we watched the sunset together, and I cried – I so loved what we had, and at the same time, knew this was the right thing to do, to say goodbye, with the understanding and belief that I would never see him again.

Fast forward a few months – I was living in Liberia, and he in Boston. I had stopped chatting to him for awhile, wanting it to be a clean break, but after some time we were chatty again on the socials. Life in Liberia was challenging, especially during the rainy season, so somehow, and I can’t even really remember how, we decided to meet up in Paris for a week in August! It was the first time we traveled together, and I wasn’t sure how it was going to go…. and it was absolutely magical. Even through food poisoning and falling off a ladder (crying while laughing emoji!).

When we said goodbye, I managed to not cry in front of him but cried afterwards – it felt so magical, but I didn’t think I’d ever see him again after that. He didn’t want my life, and I didn’t want his; long-distance, across an ocean, just wasn’t an option, and I expected he’d meet someone else and I would be happy for him – I always told him, I wanted him to be happy more than I wanted him to be with me, so when he met someone else special, to please just let me know, and I’ll wish him all the best in the world.

But time marches on, and neither of us found anyone else, and I made plans to travel the States in November – I attended a fundraising gala for the Liberian organization I was working for in Seattle, visited friends in Colorado, and went home for Thanksgiving for the first time in almost a decade. When looking at flights, we figured out the best place for us to meet up was Detroit (how romantic!) so we did! and it was. We ate cider donuts and enjoyed the fall colors and stumbled upon the largest food-truck rally ever. Every place is an adventure with this guy!

I went back to Liberia to finish up my work there, and had by then been offered the job in South Africa. I spent Christmas in France, and then we planned a really fun New Years in Montreal! Canadians sure know how to have fun in the middle of the freezing cold winter!

At this point I still very much said goodbye every time as if it was the very last time we’d see each other. We both agreed we’d be dating other people (and we both did) and also just agreed that if/when we met someone special, or started to talk about commitment, that we’d tell each other, and be happy for each other, and wish each other the very best. I knew I was heading to South Africa for the foreseeable future, and he wasn’t interested. It wasn’t yet meant to be. And I was fine with that – but also, every single time we were together, it felt magical. And it was, to some extent – we got to see the very best of each other, to be together for short periods where we had 100% of the others’ attention, often in romantic or new exciting places, and didn’t ever need to care what day-to-day life looked like, because we weren’t living it.

I traveled a lot in early 2019, while I was waiting for my new job to get the paperwork sorted so I could start (there was an extended government shutdown you might recall) and in between Costa Rica and Seattle and Minnesota and Hawaii and DC, I stopped in Boston a few times.

When I was in Costa Rica I got to know a really cool couple who were staying in the same place as I was (I was alone). I remember, for the first time, seeing them and really thinking, wow, how great it would be to have someone to share this with. Until then, I was quite happy to travel solo and explore the world, but something shifted in that moment. I think it was around then, or as a result of that experience, that I decided once I got settled in South Africa, I was going to be a bit more purposeful and intentional about dating, as I hadn’t really given it much effort until then.

Anyway, one of the trips of that season was to the Congo to run an anesthesia training, and on the way back I had a long weekend layover in New York City! It was glorious in spring, and we both love Broadway, so saw two shows in two nights! Magical.

When I was finally able to go to DC in preparation and training for my new job, I also had a visitor. I can’t find a single photo of the two of us from that time in DC but we did go for cocktails at the restaurant on the roof of the Watergate hotel and snapped this photo of the sunset.

Then I moved to South Africa for good, and as I mentioned we both started dating, but after a few months of regular life on opposite sides of the Atlantic, we both had a hankering for another adventure, so we met up in Rome!

That was the last time we saw each other for quite a long time. Honestly, I really thought after that trip, I’d never see him again. I was dating in South Africa and settling into life there, and I knew he wasn’t interested in joining me. But by the end of 2020 we were both single, covid-weary, and desperate for another adventure, so we ended up in Costa Rica. This was the place I first distinctly remember thinking I wish I had someone special to share this with, and so it was extra special to share it with him.

After not being together for over a year, it was such a wonderful trip, and when I was back in South Africa I was determined to figure out how to convince him to join me – except I knew, deep inside, it needed to be him wanting to join me, not me convincing him somehow. So I just hoped.

A few months later, after wallowing a bit in loneliness, I started dating a South African guy that got pretty serious pretty quickly – to the point where we were talking about commitment. I knew I had to tell Gideon, as this had always been our agreement. Somehow I knew at that point I couldn’t do the long distance thing anymore, and was fully invested in seeing if this other thing would work. It was great, for awhile, as all new relationships are, but, unfortunately to me at the time but fortunately for all of us now, it didn’t last long.

I was a bit heartbroken at that point, having really thought maybe finally I had found my person to share life adventures with, and he turned out to be awful. After awhile I knew Gideon would never make me feel like this other guy did, and I missed him so much, and what did I have to lose anyway? We were basically broken up, so I might as well try. His work was in an upheaval, so I texted him:

And well, as you might have guessed, his answer was yes!

He almost immediately started getting rid of stuff and making plans to move to South Africa to be with me. I was already planning on being home in the States for a bit in May, as well as a surf trip to Costa Rica, so he joined me on that trip to talk through all the things we needed to talk through, and then when I came back to South Africa, he came with me.

And for those who wondered, Jay loves him too.

Shortly after that, we decided it was time to say I Do, Forever. So this blog post has already gotten wayyyyyyy too long, so I’m going to save the actual wedding story, including answers to the most commonly asked questions, for the next blog post.

Thanks for enjoying the story of Us.