The long and short of it? We are high school sweethearts who made it work. We were two kids. We were two students. We stand now as two people. Like vines growing up the same lattice, we have twined together and grown stronger as we’ve changed. 

We met several times. The first time Lex and I spent any sort of time together was driving school, that hotbed of romance. Meet is perhaps a strong word. Those of you who have watched me grow up know that I was a shy child, despite my parents' best efforts. I was too intimidated by pretty girls my age to confidently sit next to one, too awkward to hold a steady conversation. I sat in front of her instead. No, we truly began talking over the course of my sophomore year of high school. Lex’s smile, her laugh, captivated me far more than geometry. I was apparently funny enough to get more than my fair share of those. Familiarity turned to friendship, and by the time we were juniors, we began to talk more and more frequently. 

Our first date was at a Sonic. I know. The romantic locales just keep coming up in this story. I was a nervous wreck, Lex an excitable one who had picked out the perfect shirt for this specific event. That was October 24th, 2014. So many things about the world, and about us, have changed since that day, but the shine in our eyes, those gleaming windows of the soul, have remained undimmed. We dated throughout high school and faced our first true challenge as a couple upon graduation. Different schools in different states, and a tale as old as time. Neither of us wanted things to end. Both of us felt as though we had found the person in life that could accept us for who we were, and push us to be even more. We exchanged gifts to symbolize our bond. It was summer in Texas in 2016, and hotter than blue blazes, so I arrived at a truly logical conclusion: let's climb a rock, go down into a cave, and exchange gifts there. Upon doing exactly that, deep in the heart of Texas, (Enchanted Rock) I then turned around and began leaving the cave, carrying with me our only flashlight. Lex promptly attempted to concuss herself following the rapidly diminishing source of light in the completely pitch-dark cave. Needless to say, Lex loved everything about that experience: I know how to show a girl a good time. Then I left for New York, and things were tough. We persevered. Through time, distance, and some of the worst cell service known to man, we laughed, we fought, we made up, and we kept moving forward. 

Time passed and we stayed together. Those two kids who went on a date at a Sonic were but distant specks in the rearview mirror, on a road filled with shared memories. Our love has been the foundation of both of our lives for so long I struggle to picture myself without her: in over a thousand ways, she completes me. It has been a love defined by countless small moments, shared smiles, belly laughs, and triumphs big and small. By the time I’d wrapped up college, in January of 2023, I’d known for years that Lex was the one for me, a partner that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. I began to formulate a brilliant plan to ask for her hand in marriage. Something she would never expect. Because I was older and wiser, I would wait for the hottest part of summer to end, and then she and I would climb a rock in the middle of the Texas Hill Country, and I would propose there. Sure, the plan wasn’t bulletproof, there wasn’t a cave to crawl down into, but I thought it would work. So on the top of Cross Mountain, in Fredericksburg, TX, on September 16th of 2023, I got down on one knee, and Lexi Skidmore agreed to marry me. We were both told growing up that relationships have peaks and valleys. I’m telling you, guys, the peaks are for asking her to marry you, (caves-optional). 

Now we enter the next leg of this voyage we call our lives. The past has been both smooth sea and storm, doldrums and gale. Through good times and bad, we have stuck together, and I can’t wait to keep sailing through life together. 

- Conrad