It certainly has been quite a journey since meeting Cai. Before meeting Cai, I had given up on finding my life partner. I had constructed a plan where I would go back to school, get my Nurse Practitioner degree, and then move back to Long Beach, where I would find a donor and raise my child with the help of my family. Very few friends knew of this plan.

A wise friend reminded me that everyone has their own path, within their own timeline, traveling through their life’s journey. Painful as it was, I resigned myself to accepting that it simply was not the right time.

In the pursuit of entering the field of Psychiatry, I joined Dr. David Burn’s weekly therapy group to learn Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. One unsuspecting evening, in a breakout group led by Sunny, I was partnered with Cai to role-play a therapy technique. The first thing I noticed about Cai was that he was impressionable in his unconventional and fervent disposition. In fact, he was a bit outlandish. He intrigued me because he was so unabashedly himself.

Since meeting Cai, he has inspired me to be bold and courageous. Thus, for the first time in my life, I reached out to an unknown stranger by email. He responded enthusiastically. Our emails evolved to text messages, to phone calls, to Zoom conversations. Then, I did the boldest thing I have ever done in my life and invited Cai to meet me at the Big Island in Hawaii. It would be our first in-person meeting.

Both of our anxiety got in the way at the beginning of our relationship. Cai, when he initially rejected my offer to go to Hawaii. And me, when I insisted that we should stay friends after meeting in person in Hawaii. I am thankful that, in the end, we took the courageous route to choose love. To choose vulnerability. And ultimately, to choose each other. In Hawaii, Cai told me, that when he thinks of us, he imagines that we are traveling in a Jeep together, heading into the sunset. Our destination is uncertain, but we continue to travel together. I am thankful that we both chose to stay on this ride, traveling through this journey called life. The destination remains uncertain, and hundreds to thousands of miles remain untraveled. However, we are excited to make a stop in our journey at the exit called Wedding, and we would be so ecstatic if you could meet us there.

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