How to find the love of my life, and for me to be the love of his life, too
How I did it: Finding the man I would marry wasn't something I expected to happen only weeks after graduation. But at a friend's eighteenth birthday party, that's exactly what happened.
We attended the same high school; we were both in marching band (clarinet for him; flag corps for me) and even danced together in the musical our senior year. But we never really knew each other, partially because a fall birthday made him a year behind me in school.
But at the party, away from the dynamics and drama of high school, we got to know a new side of each other. By the time I started college, we were dating. And by his senior prom, we knew we would be married one day.
Most high school romances don't last; we knew that. But we were best friends long before he graduated. Even after he moved an hour away for college, we kept it up. We spent as much of our free time together as we could manage. Sure, we spent time with our friends and had our own hobbies, but we most enjoyed spending time together, even just watching a movie or reading books.
Almost three years after we started dating, we were engaged: on my twenty-first birthday. Two years later, exactly one week before my twenty-third, we were married.
And twelve years later, we are still unbelievably happy. We've had rough times, with deaths in our families, financial difficulties, and grueling school schedules for us both. But it's more than worth it.
