So it took us about 2 weeks to have our first date because Ben was living in Caldwell, NJ and I was living at Widener University in Chester, PA. Ben generously drove the 2 hours one Friday night to meet me at Penns Landing in Philadelphia. The conversation was easy and the connection was definitely still there. Afterwards, I told Ben that I would like to see him again, and he said, “really?” So for the next date, I drove up to him in Caldwell, NJ and we went out with some of his friends in Montclair, NJ to one of their favorite bars to see one of their favorite bar bands, Brian Kirk and the Jerks.

We went back and forth, long distance, for the next 2.5 years alternating weekends for who would drive to whom. I had an opportunity to do a clinical rotation for school up in North Jersey and this gave Ben and I an opportunity to trial living together for 3 months in 2017. Things went well and we decided to get a bigger place after graduation so we could officially move in together, at 22 Lackawanna Plaza in Montclair, where some of our engagement photos were taken! We lived there for about 5 years before moving to our current apartment in Bloomfield, NJ in 2022.