Once upon a time, there was a sad angsty boy and a sad Jangle girl (a reference to their respective music tastes, not mental states...for the most part...). The boy, Joe, had never been better; his mind never more clear. He spent time making headway in his career as a Senior Design Engineer at Milwaukee Tool, cultivating his many hobbies, and tending to his best floofy friend, Max.

The girl, Callie, was in a time of self-reflection. She was making big changes, producing enough beeps and boops on the computer for the tech company she worked at to earn her a few promotions, and spending quality time with her timid companion, Stella.

One day, for some reason, they both decided to download a silly app called Tinder. After a hypnotizing series of swipes, the girl came across a profile that drew her attention. Her finger hovered over the touchpad of her iPhone 12; she swiped right.

It was a match. The rest was history.

After a series of perfect first dates—a trip to his favorite restaurant in the city, a hunt for the most expensive tulip known to man, an introduction to the great outdoors, countless minutes spent texting back and forth until their eyes grew heavy—they were both hooked.

Then, one day—May 18th to be specific—the texts came to a deafening halt. As a chronic worrier, the girl thought the worst. Something felt wrong. Little did she know, both of their lives would never be the same.

On that otherwise normal Thursday morning, Joe was riding his motorcycle to a doctor's appointment and was struck by an ambulance. For the next few weeks he would remain at the hospital, unaware of what happened, enduring countless procedures as he and a team of doctors and nurses fought for his life. She would sit and wait; unsure if he was awake, if he was in pain, if he would even remember their time together during those perfect few months before.

When he was finally well enough to talk, the girl reached out and lent him her support. He was in rough shape; two spinal cord injuries, 14 fused vertebrae, 14 broken ribs, and a list of other injuries. She visited him a few times at the hospital, and she cried when visiting hours were over and was forced to leave. Joe moved back to his family's home in Michigan, and it was hard. He missed his job, he missed his friends, he missed his dog, and he missed her.

They continued to text daily and spent hours on the phone. So many hours that sometimes he would fall asleep, through no will of his own, and mumble silly words and phrases that could only have come from deep inside a dream state. She would laugh and have to tell him to hang up the phone and get some sleep.

After a while, enough felt like enough; they decided to make it official. They didn't care if he was still almost 400 miles, a 7+ hour drive and a time zone apart. And when long distance didn't feel like enough, they hatched a plan for Joe to get well enough to come and visit her back in Cream City.

A bit more healing and some personal milestones later, he hopped on a train to Milwaukee. She picked him up from the station, and from that day on they knew they would do whatever it took to be together in a city they could both call home.

A few months later, and a few nerve-wracking conversations with family and friends, he decided to move back for good, and move in with her. They packed up his things in her new VW Passat for a one-way trip to Milwaukee. Over the next year, they found their groove. She continued to work from home. She took him to a host of doctor and physical therapy appointments until he was able to learn how to drive again. They cooked dinner together, they went out with friends, they learned more about each other than some people will learn in a lifetime.

Flash forward a year and some change, and not only are they living life together, in the same zip code, they are making it officially official. He asked her to marry him in the spring of 2024. There was no rehearsed speech, no public display of affection; just a private, intimate moment between two people who have been through enough to know that there is no such thing as a perfect moment. You have to make it perfect, and take control of your own destiny before it has a chance to slip through the Universe's fingers. He had to tell her all of this, about how much he loved her, and about how he wanted to continue to tell her until they were both old and crusty. Because who knows what could happen tomorrow.