Adam and I are one of those couples that met at a bar. Let's just get that out of the way. It was his first visit to San Luis Obispo -where I lived- and he had just barely moved to California for an internship at Apple like a good little tech boy.

I had been living in SLO for 5 years, you could say I was a local. I had my Saturday night routines down pat. Dancing at Novo and then moving to Frog & Peach for some good beer and conversations with friends and strangers. Adam and his techie friends were in SLO for a getaway weekend. He’d spent his Saturday at a beer festival, I’d spent mine studying for the GRE.

Our paths collided when the day ended and night began. Adam and his out-of-town crew went from the daytime beer festival to the SLO bars to keep their good times rolling. (CUE: Adam at Frog & Peach, an Irish Pub)

I stuck with my usual Saturday routine (CUE: Grace at Frog & Peach, I wonder what's going to happen). For the record, I thought nothing was going to happen. I was wearing Chaco shoes, purple yoga pants, a shirt full of Snoopy drawings, and I think a Disneyland sweatshirt? Outfit was a 2/10.

By the time I arrived at Frog & Peach all but one of my friends had gone home. When my one remaining friend went to greet some of her other homies, my life changed forever. As she walked away, I struck up a conversation with a group of randoms- one of whom was Mr. ADAM KILLEEN.

I'm excited to tell this story now, but at the time I was mostly excited because he offered to buy me a drink.

It kills me not to go into all the details of Adam's every little move and mannerism that night, but I tend to get really caught up in the details and I don't know if this thing has a character limit (seems like no, but I'll stress test it). I will say though, Adam said "fa sho" a ridiculous number of times that evening and I don't think I've ever heard him say that phrase again. It was weird.

But weirdness is kind of what brought us together. After we got our drinks, we started dancing to the band playing that night. I'm pretty sure the song was American Pie. We simultaneously began singing all of the words we knew as we danced in the aisle of the bar.

For me, belting out a song and dancing in public is par for the course. But for Adam, it was a moment. In the middle of that stupid Irish bar, Adam looked at me and dramatically alerted me that I had passed his "weird test."

You guys, I kid you not, this statement launched us into the rest of the night. For me, being appreciated for being weird was the biggest green flag. It's like, imagine if you always smelled like onions. A lot of people are going to get a sniff and say no thank you. But then you find someone who tells you that your stench is something they've been missing in their lives. They can't get enough of the onions. That's how it felt for me. Call me onion girl.

Speaking of onions: Onions have layers. And that night, we got down to the inner layers of our lives pretty quickly. We're both straight shooters that way. We liked each other, we had great energy together. Green flags only, besides the whole "fa sho" thing.

I know what you're wondering, so I'll just come right out and say it. We slept together that night. It was awesome. We slept foot to foot, on the L-shaped couch in the living room of Adam's airBnB, talking until 4 in the morning, PG-13 rom-com style. We learned later that in the other room, all of Adam's friends were piled up with their ears to the door. I thought people only did that in Disney TV shows.

When I woke up the next morning, my first instinct was to call an Uber and put this dream to bed. It was fun, it was hopeful, but it was too ridiculous to be real. I didn't feel like this was my story to live out.

But, if you've ever seen Adam asleep, you know how absolutely angelic he looks. When I saw his face, I couldn't call myself a ride home. I already loved him. My heart and my brain did a solid for me that day, they agreed that this wasn't something to leave unfinished. I decided to let the morning play out.

Adam woke up and offered to drive me home. My heart started to sink. This was it. At least he was classy about giving me a ride. We were three minutes away from my house when I realized and blurted out that I had forgotten my earrings at Adam's AirBnb. The car U-turned immediately, Adam's call. I guess you could say it was a fashion emergency and Adam stepped up as a first responder.

We were back where we started, in the middle of downtown San Luis Obispo, drinking. This time it was coffee. We had a whole morning to spend before Adam drove his friends back to the Bay, so we figured we might as well get to know each other in the daylight with some caffeine in our systems.

Guys, boxes started getting checked. We went into depth about the miracles of actin and myosin muscle fibers, shared thoughts on the lives of refugees, agreed that paying more for better quality items is worth it. The usual things.

By the time Adam dropped me off for real, I felt deflated. We'd acknowledged how if we lived in the same town, dating would be a no-brainer, but we didn't. He bid me farewell with a "if you're ever in the bay, hit me up," and then queued the first song in a playlist I'd shared with him. I walked out of the car as Dreams by Fleetwood Mac blasted from his speakers, windows rolled down. I took one last look at him, spun around, and danced away.

We reconnected two weeks later. I was up in the bay area for "Dale's birthday," a cover story she was wise enough to recognize but kind enough to go along with. With Dale's crib as my home base, I scheduled a hike date with Adam in a nearby state park.

As I pulled into the Los Gatos Safeway parking lot- our designated meeting place for pre-hike snacks- I saw his navy blue Pontiac headed directly my way. I freaked out. I was in no way prepared to see him in this way, car to car, driver to driver. I'm a hugger, I can't do a social-distanced hello. It was too late to U-turn. When Adam saw me, he rolled down his window to say hi, smooth and cool. In a panic, I fumbled to roll down my window, and managed to interrupt the only syllable in the word "hi" to get straight to business with a tense and overly direct "where are you parking?"

Look, I know it seems dumb, but the awkwardness was palpable. I could've died. Adam chalked it up to nerves. It was indeed nerves. I love that man. He overthinks absolutely nothing.

See what I mean about the details? Like this isn't even the date yet, this is just pre-date context that literally no one needs. Okay, re-focusing.

The hike went great. Adam came across as the guy he's always been. Just a genuine, happy, silly dude, with unpretentious smarts. After, Adam took me on a proper dinner date and the conversation struck a nice balance between talking about fair wages for teachers and walking through how to facilitate a successful sake bomb with only glassware. I met, and re-met, Adam's bay area friends that night. They're my friends now, and Adam's about to be my husband. What the heck!

Life moved on. After our first date in the bay, Adam drove back to SLO to spend the St. Patrick's weekend with me. At that point, we recognized that what we had was something worth working towards. We visited each other in our respective cities for the next three years as we continued to build a relationship together. At first it was SLO to the bay area. When Adam returned to Purdue for his last year of college, we traveled to and from SLO and West Lafayette, Indiana. Once Adam got re-hired back at Apple and I chose a grad school, we flew between San Diego and San Jose. With the pandemic causing school to go virtual, I moved in with Adam and his two roommates in March of 2020. We moved into our first apartment together in April of 2021.

Life is crazy. I can't believe we are where we are. I can't believe that the sneeze I just heard to my left is Adam's. I can't believe I'm sitting at the kitchen table in the cutest little Palo Alto apartment that I live in with him. I can't believe that I met such an incredible, optimistic, sassy, artistic, helpful, loving person, who gets me, loves me, and laughs with me.

xx

Damicela

edited to under 3 hours by xx Adam

Registry

We know how far some of you are traveling for our wedding, and that is absolutely enough for us. We have a TIIIIIINNNINY apartment with everything we need, so our registry is just a fund for us to put towards savings, down payments, and the practical costs involved in building a life together!