Call it Fate or maybe just blind luck.....

A lot of couples have crazy, unconventional, or cute stories of how they met; I'd boldly consider us to be one of those you'll meet. We had no clue of each other in the squadron, (if you don't know by now, we're both in the military and work in the same career field), other than the occasional greeting on the drill weekend and what friends had spoken about one another. Neither of us knew each other's past, upbringing, favorite foods, aspirations, anything. A huge part, crazy part, of this down the road is finding out how similar we were without knowing. It's 2020 and we've just been tasked with a rotation to Iraq and as usual, people are grabbing for those spots as well as leadership already having good knowledge of who they want to send. Maria had been chosen early on seeing she was new to the squadron and had already established herself as a competent driven Airman who'd volunteered for a couple assignments at that time. In my 13+ years of enlistment, I have never met anyone with as much drive as her and it's easy to say that's a quality I absolutely love about her. Now I'm pretty much throwing darts at a board blindfolded, hoping I could be selected for this trip too, but in my head, chances with pretty slim to none. I've just put on another stripe, I'm looking to secure another fulltime position, and I've been on deployments so they're more than likely going to choose someone who hasn't had a chance yet. Outlook not good. By some miracle though, as I would like to fate, because of my position move in the squadron, it landed me the opportunity to lead this team of new deployers. Now we're all together doing your basic prepping, learning and training. We all worked well together....except one little issue. Maria will tell you different but don't let her. This is one of the first real interactions we had together; she was assembling gear and paperwork for the day, and I was with her at the time. She let out the BIGGEST sigh I've ever heard, and I couldn't believe it. I looked at her in utter disbelief and asked her Do you even want to be here?. She'll tell that story like I was the meanest person in the world. While I was trying to make sure she was alright, and nothing was bothering her about the trip. Fast forward now to 2021 as we're getting ready to step off to the sandbox and I'm being told she's got big bad Covid. Goes without saying, I'm more worried about how she's going to get over there safely by herself, on her first deployment. Thankfully our lead supervisor was a tremendous help in making sure of her arrival without a hitch. I can't for the life of me explain rationally why or how life seemed to work out for us. We got posted together a lot, spending most nights sharing those similarities, common interests, and funny moments, on top of having the same off-day break. I'd go out of my way to check up on her too if we weren't exactly posted together and sometimes, we'd bring each other coffees from our favorite garbage spot, The Green Bean. Found out really quick how addicted to coffee Maria was. There was just an unusual comfortableness we had together, and we say this all the time, it was as if we had been friends or knew each other for years. When I tell you this woman had a chokehold on me, I mean sometimes it was hard for me to imagine coming back home and us go our separate ways to the point it was nauseating. So now we're on the tail end of the trip, spending the last couple weeks in transient dorms waiting to leave and we're basically inseparable. She's talking about getting an apartment somewhere in Peoria and applying for a fulltime job at the unit while I'm stoking that fire praying she will. Wouldn't you know it, I'm blessed with my prayer, and she's set to make it all happen. We've come from knowing that we almost didn't meet, to not knowing each other at all and landing us together in the most unimaginable places to find your soulmate, and finishing our journey together deciding that life back home wasn't meant without each other. I've tried to condense this as best as I could knowing there's so much I could say about the woman I fell in love with, but I think you all have seen firsthand how deeply infatuated I am with her. She is my blessing, my rock, my ray of light from one of the darkest times of my life and always forever. She is fate. Where I am and who I am now is because of her. I only hope that the day she walks down that aisle to me, time stops for us and I can live in that blinding beauty forever. I love you to infinity and beyond mi corazon.