Chase and I met on an online dating app in June of 2021. At first, I thought little of it. We were both on the app partly to pass time and because it was unsafe to socialize in public; neither of us were expecting anything serious to come of it. And nothing may have, had I not mentioned to a wonderful friend of mine, Sadie Varlas, that I matched with a boy from her town - Wheeling, West Virigina. Sadie told me Chase was cute and normal, and that I should go out with him.

After confirming that we were both vaccinated, we arranged to meet in at an outdoor cider brewery in Pittsburgh's Lawenceville neighborhood. Neither of us were living in the city at the time, but it was an area I knew well. True to form, I was 45 minutes late to our first date. Miraculously, Chase didn't leave, and when I arrived, he was sitting in the garden with a glass of ginger cider. I remember hesitating before walking through the doors to meet him; not out of doubt, but because I was suddenly overcome with the uncanny feeling that my life would change.

That first date lasted seven hours. Over the next few months, we explored our parts of Pennsylvania and West Virginia, including a memorable few hours spent lost in Coopers Rock State Forest. In August, I moved back to Pittsburgh to resume in-person grad school classes. By Chase's birthday in September, I knew I loved him.

Fast forward to March 2022. At that time, Chase and I knew that we would spend our lives together, but did not have immediate plans to get engaged. I was still living in Pittsburgh, and one weekend, Chase mentioned that my 19-year-old cat, Timon, was not looking well. We lost him two days later. It was his time, but I fell apart entirely. Timon was the reason my heart beat; he was woven into the fiber of my bones. And Chase peeled me off the floor. He never wavered, taking care of everything logistic and never flinching at the most repellent parts of death. He'd said it and shown it before, but I knew then that he loved me deeply.

Registry

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