I had been working at Carson-Newman since December 2021, with the plans of moving out of Tennessee and broadening my horizons. I many times would look into other positions out of state, but was stopped by a feeling that I needed to wait. I wouldn't know until later on that Jason would be what I was waiting for. (If I have any advice to people it would be trust your intuition!)

Before Jason started in his position I was nervous about how a new staff member would affect our dynamic as the four members in our positions worked very closely with each other (oh the irony) Jason then moved in the office next to mine and I was determined to make friends with him! In our first real interaction with each other I got us lost on some backroads in the Smokies das he was driving the 15 passenger van full of students on our way to retreat. I was apologizing the whole time and thought I blew any chance of being friends with him. Thankfully I was wrong! We bonded over our nerdiness, music, pranking our coworkers, and dealing with all the general weirdness that came with our jobs. One day after Jason had a particularly frustrating interaction with a student, I asked him to go on a walk to help blow off some steam. It was October and their were leaf piles all over campus that I had joked about jumping in all week but didn't because I didn't want to mess up my outfit. As we were talking I interrupted him and went "Hold on a minute" and sprinted and jumped in a pile of leaves to make him laugh. It worked, and I had my "oh crap" moment of realizing how much I really like him. I tried ignoring my feelings for a long time because I didn't want to lose my friend. Being friends with him was enough because that meant I was in his life, and I wasn't sure if he felt the same. (I later found out that it was obvious to literally EVERYONE but us how we felt about each other) In March, he finally got the courage to ask me out and I felt so excited an relieved!

Since then we've gotten to go on many adventures and experience the mundane together. As someone who highly enjoys (or enjoyed), being alone I didn't marriage as something that was in the cards for me. I am living proof that when you are with the right person it changes everything for the better. I was genuinely happy before I met him, but I never knew how much happier I could be then when we stated dating. Meeting Jason was like discovering your favorite ice cream. It goes from something you are completely unfamiliar with and maybe skeptical of at first, to something so wonderful that you wonder how you lived without it all this time. I am so excited to marry him, and to share this experience with my loved ones!

Travel

Travel coming soon!