It all started one blissful summer day....

just kidding.

Our story starts with me (Christy) taking a last minute spring break trip (I was had already graduated and was working, but still wanted to pretend like I had spring break) with my best friend Emmie to Chicago in March of 2019. Though we had originally planned to meet up with some friends in Louisiana for a surprise event, some things fell through and we decided to make a long weekend of Chicago to spend time in the city and meet up with our friend Megan who lived there. I was slowly emerging from what had been a pretty hard season in multiple ways, so this was very much a girls trip away.

I'll save the details about my weekend in the Windy City, but it was just what I needed. Art museums, great food, sweet friend time, a bean, late night pubs.. all of the things a weekend in a city like Chicago is made of. When it was time to go home on Sunday morning, Emmie and I sleepily packed our things and got dressed for what would be a 10 hour drive. I gave little thought to what I was wearing, in spite of the fact that I knew we might be making a brief pit stop excursion in the lavish city of Indianapolis on the way back to Chattanooga. Our mutual friend and Indy-native, Michael, noticed we were in Chicago and invited us to stop in at his newly bought house and have lunch with him.

We met Michael at a local Indianapolis sandwich shop and carpooled back to his house to eat. When we arrived, Michael gave us a tour of the house, showing us the modern, art-filled and eclectic downstairs living room, and walking us upstairs to briefly point out the three bedrooms. Here's where I wish my sense and observations had been more.. shall we say... acute. I *think* I remember Michael mentioning his new roommate, but I don't think I was paying too much attention – because I was taken off guard when 20 minutes later (and into lunch), Levi came downstairs and amicably introduced himself to Emmie and I, while asking if he could make us coffee.

I think it's a great place to take a brief pause, and just state that this gesture is SO Levi. It makes me smile to think that that was my first interaction with him, because it's so representative of who he is –always kind, always warm, and so hospitable. That first memory of him will always have a special place in my heart.

[Resume..] Levi brought us each coffee, handing it to me in a cartoon Runescape mug. Runescape, for anyone who is unfamiliar, was an online, multiplayer medieval computer game that all of us at the table had played when we were younger. We all bonded over how amazing the game was, and the different things we loved about our experience with the game (for example, I played it in 6th grade typing class because I was the fastest typer and always finished early.... but I'll save the rest of my Runescape bragging for another time)

Levi and I both remember that we were fairly quiet that day, and that Emmie and Michael drove most of the conversation. Levi was also coming out of a hard few months, so we both feel like our heads were somewhat foggy that morning. Now we both recall thinking the other was cute and kind, but neither of us were in a headspace to think about it further than that. Upon leaving, we all hugged, and Emmie and I made our way back to the car. I didn't think about Levi again until 5 months later, on August 2nd...

It's funny to think about the tiny, seemingly inconsequential actions we make that end up changing the course of our lives. On August 2, 2019, I was at work, hunkered down on some project on my laptop and streaming music. I went to Spotify to change the playlist I was listening to, and noticed on my social feed (where you can see what your friends have been listening to recently) that 3 of my friends were all listening to an artist by the name of Levi Matthan. At the time, the name meant nothing to me, but I clicked on the artist profile because it was strange to see multiple of my friends listening to the same album at a time (for context, by this time Levi and I had accumulated a few mutual friends).

Levi had just released his first EP (I didn't even know when we met in March that he was a musician, so this was all very much a surprise), and the album art he used was a painted picture of his face. I think it only took me a minute or so to make the connection of who he was once I saw the album art. I listened to a couple of his songs and was truthfully very impressed by it.

Wanting to find out more about this long lost friend with a hidden talent (and being a little curious about this cute musician boy), I quickly found him on social media. Like I mentioned, we had some mutual friends, and because we'd met already I felt fine about following him on Instagram.

Over the course of the next few months, Levi and I would send a brief message here and there about something the other had posted, or, in my case, cheering him on for different music things he was doing. We connected over humor, so we'd often joke about something the other did. It was casual and for all intents and purposes meaningless until December 25.

On Christmas evening, I noticed that Levi had added me to his 'Close Friends' list, which just means that I could see ~exclusive~ content that he only shared with close friends. I was really confused because by no stretch of the imagination were we close... but some part of me was intrigued and interested to know why this cute, kind, musical, now FUNNY boy had taken the time to make me his close friend.

So, I replied to a story he posted, similar to how I had a few times before, but this time it was different.. unlike the other conversations we had had that had been brief and quickly brought to a close, this one kept going. One question led to another, and the conversation that started that day never ended.

That December, I had moved from Chattanooga to eastern North Carolina to spend a few months with my sister. Levi came into my life in a time that I wasn't surrounded by friends or close community. So we talked a ton those next few months, learning what each other found interesting, funny, and thoughtful. We both created imaginative, hypothetical scenarios and shared them with each other. It was clear early on that we shared similar opinions, beliefs, senses of humor, frustrations, tastes, etc. It was also clear that Levi loved the Lord and even from a distance I could see so much fruit from his walk with God.

The day before Valentines day was when he finally indicated interest in coming down to see me, and take me on a date. We both had reasons (and fortunate excuses) to be in Atlanta in March of 2020 at the same time, so the weekend before the world shut down, we spent time together. We talked, walked, ate, and laughed our way through Atlanta, and it was clear that Levi was a likeminded soul. We left that weekend knowing that we wanted to keep talking and if all continued to go well, date– even though we had no idea how long it would be before we'd be able to see each other again thanks to COVID. By the time I left Atlanta, Levi felt like a best friend. We barely made it a week before we made it official...

and as they say... the rest is history ✨

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