We met at the University of Virginia, in spring of 2022. We lived in houses that were just a few hundred yards apart, and some of our housemates knew each other from church. One evening in March, Howe and his housemates went over Alma’s house for a movie night. Alma was not there, but she came in as the film ended, and we were introduced. We saw each other again at a game night, and both became quite intrigued. Upon discovering that Alma was studying Russian, Howe employed an infallible heart-stealing tactic: discussing Soviet history. We stayed up past one o’clock playing cards and talking with friends.

A week or so later we hadn’t seen each other again, and hadn’t yet exchanged numbers. Howe was starting to think there might not be much interest after all when Alma threw him a lifeline. One evening, Howe’s friend Jonathan (who knew Alma from church) told Howe that she had asked for the name of a book about European nationalism that he’d mentioned. Howe had just wits enough to perceive that Alma was not chiefly interested in the book! He acted swiftly, getting Alma’s contact from Jonathan and asking her out to coffee. We spent more and more time together, going on runs, getting dinner, studying together, and strolling in UVA’s peaceful walled gardens just as they burst into bloom. At the end of April, we decided we liked each other enough to keep dating after Howe graduated. We passed a lovely May in Charlottesville together, a time we will always remember with joy, in a place we will always cherish – and to which we hope to return someday.

Over the next year, we dated from a distance. Howe was living and working in Washington, D.C., and Alma was in her final year at UVA. Howe’s path down Route 29 to Charlottesville was well beaten: we went to football games, vineyards, a theatrical adaptation of an Austen novel, and spent time at the Whitmans’ farm outside town. Alma made many trips to D.C., where she became a much-loved presence at Howe’s house on Capitol Hill, and where we walked the National Mall, toured museums, and saw a ballet at the Kennedy Center.

The next summer, Alma came to D.C. after graduation for an academic program. She stayed on into the fall, interning in a senator’s office. We got to live in the same city for the first time since the beginning of our relationship, and do our daily and weekly routines of eating, reading, walking, running, and going to church together. It was during this time that we fell irreversibly in love. We read books aloud to each other, we cooked elaborate dinners for my housemates, and we talked for hours as we criss-crossed Capitol Hill by day and by night. Each discovered unexpected layers of humor in the other, and we laughed together more than ever before. We moved from having deep mutual affection to being unable to imagine spending the rest of our lives apart.

When Alma left D.C. to begin her Air Force training in California, it was hard for both of us, and for that reason, clarifying. This wouldn’t do at all! We would just have to get married. In February of this year, a few days after Valentine’s Day, Alma visited D.C. As we had so often done, we took a turn around the U.S. Capitol at night (a “Cap Lap”), and on its western side, in view of the Washington Monument, Howe dropped to one knee. Howe being a predictable person, and Alma being a perceptive one who moreover knows Howe very, very well, was not blindsided, but she was elated. Her family had flown into town, including her dad surprising everyone last minute, and we met them right after the proposal for champagne. Howe’s family came the next day, and we all celebrated together with a joyous engagement party at Howe’s house.

This summer, we will both move to Cheyenne, Wyoming, and won’t part again. It’s almost time to begin our life together, and we can hardly wait.