It all started late 2017 in Charleston, SC. Ironically, the same place where we will gather our closest friends and family to turn the pages and begin the next chapter about six short years later. We became friends before anything else, that's how the best love stories start right? At least I would like to think so. Nuclear Field A School, at this time felt like an extension of high school. Most of the people you're surrounded by are still young and trying to figure out who they want to be. I know for a fact I was. I met Chris through some other friends at first. We seemed to get along right from the start. We would hang out with our friends together as a big group and there always seemed to be something drawing me towards him. His stellar good looks perhaps? Maybe it was that to me there was always a sense of comfort near him. We were never more then friends during this time.

In 2018, the Navy sent us separate ways. Chris moved to New York to continue training and I remained in South Carolina. Did I visit him in New York? Indirectly, yes. I went to the area when I was home in Vermont for the holidays and we were able to see each other.

In 2019, Chris was sent to USS Carl Vinson stationed in Washington state and I was sent to USS Theodore Roosevelt a little bit later on stationed in California. Again, indirectly I visited him in Washington as I made my way down to California. I went on a couple deployments, served my time and carried on with life while periodically staying in contact with Chris and catching up on life every now and then. He was always there. Well, his ship moved to San Diego and our time there overlapped by a month or two. Did I visit him? Yes, and this time there's no "indirectly" involved. I would later find out that during this visit he was secretly thinking of talking to me about dating! Before you ask though, no he didn't ACTUALLY mention anything to me. Go figure. My ship then moved to Washington for our overhaul period and Chris would go on some work up cycles and deployment. Again, we got in contact every now and then to catch up. It wasn't until he wasn't going to be going on a deployment again did we talk about dating and it went something like this:

Me: "Hey, I know we have kinda talked about dating in the past but ummm what do you think if we actually did it?"

Him: "I think that would be pretty cool."

Me: "Yeah, I think so to."

A few weeks later Chris was on a plane flying to Washington to see me for a quick four day weekend and a couple months after that I was on my way to San Diego with the ship to finally be stationed in the same area after about five years of periodic visits and being friends. Our schedules only ever overlapped by about four to seven days at a time that we could see each other and we both cherished all of that time. Fast forward to July of 2023, Chris has detached from the ship and we moved our two dogs and our stuff into our new house in Summerville, SC. I returned to San Diego for a short two months until I could detach from my ship and meet him in SC to FINALLY settle down and not have to be apart again!

Due to being active duty, our relationship has been dynamic and we have had to learn to ride the waves and go with the flow of life. There are highs and lows, as with every relationship ever, but at the end of the day, we have each other and that is something we can both count on.

We are both strong independently, but together, we are unstoppable.