We decided to write our own versions of our love story independently instead of sitting down together to put it into words. We purposefully set no guidelines, so any similarities in our stories were completely inadvertent. Please enjoy this story. It's our favorite.

From Meghan’s Perspective:

I attended a small, private school located in New London, NC, K-8th grade. I remember very clearly in 5th grade when we got a new student. Our class was small, maybe 8 kids total, and only a couple of the students were boys. This year, we had a new BOY. In case it wasn’t obvious, it was Caleb.

Immediately, all the girls seemed to develop crushes on Caleb. I was not exempt from this. Fast forward to another painful year in middle school and I wrote him a “check yes or no” note proclaiming my love for him. Much to my embarrassment, he never mentioned this note again. At least, not until we had started dating as mid-20s adults.

Despite this puppy love letter, we became pretty good friends. I have memories of me and Caleb hanging out with other people in class after school on the playground and just goofing around. We became even closer when we realized that we would be 2 of the 4 students from this school attending a charter school down the road. We were all going there without really knowing anyone, so I think we inherently clung to each other a little bit.

It was really easy for me and Caleb to grow our friendship in high school. Because our last names both start with Is, our lockers were always stacked or beside each other. We had many classes together, until we became upperclassmen and he was in all the AP science and math classes and I was taking AP language classes. We often were assigned to even sit beside each other in classes (again, thanks to our last names) and Caleb became someone I frequently texted about homework questions, etc.

Senior year, I decided to very randomly join the swim team. I was terrified of it since it was a new sport for me as a Senior, but I wanted to do it. Caleb had been on the swim team and was actually really good at swimming. I remember him taking time after practices to work with me on flip-turns and the dreaded butterfly stroke (I never quite picked that up. Sorry, Caleb). I remember being terrified of having to do a butterfly event, and sure enough, I was placed in one. Clearly Coach had never even seen me do this because I’m sure I looked like I was actively drowning the entire time. I do remember, however, Caleb being one of the teammates that was cheering for me at the end of the pool. He came up to me after I (barely) completed the 100M race, and although I was incredibly embarrassed, he told me I did the best I could’ve and it was over. He also kindly sympathized with me and had NO idea why I was placed in that event to begin with.

During college, we actually kept in touch the first couple years. I was involved in a couple things at Campbell that would take me to NC State and I always made sure to reach out to Caleb and see if he could spare a couple minutes to come see me. He always did. It was nice. He was a comfortable familiarity in the unfamiliar world of college. And he always greeted me with the best big, warm, smiley hugs. He’s always given great hugs.

Somewhere in the chaos of college, probably around the middle of our Junior year, we lost touch. Not for any real reason. We didn’t reconnect until I had moved to PA for graduate school and had one semester under my belt. I had attended a wedding of some high school friends and we had been talking about how people were doing. Someone asked if anyone had spoken to Caleb recently and I knew it had been a while since I had. Once I got back to Penn State, I texted him. And we haven’t stopped talking since.

While I was in grad school, Caleb was living in NC. We were both going through some pretty big life changes with a lot of decisions ahead of us. But we developed this truly unparalleled friendship. I saw him almost every single break I had in NC. I remember the first time I saw him after we reconnected was in El Ranchito in Albemarle on my spring break the same year we reconnected*. He drove there from Landis just to meet me. We talked and talked and had the best time. The way I remember it, one of the waiters or people who had sat near us told us we would get married if we weren’t already. We laughed it off and told him we were friends.

The closer we got, the more my family and friends asked if we were really just friends. My high school best friends, Kate and Mary, told me SO many times that we would end up together. I just insisted he was a really good friend. My mom and sister gave me the same grief. During this time of me living in PA, Caleb and I went shooting, visited Carowinds on a random weekday, attended hockey games, and watched a Durham Bulls game. When I was physically in PA, we texted paragraphs all day and into the night. We even stayed in daily contact when I was living in Ireland, with me sending him pictures on Snapchat of my European adventures.

By the time graduation came, I knew I didn’t want to be in DC and felt the pull to come home to North Carolina. A major factor in this was the absence of sweet tea in PA, for sure. I started looking for jobs in Charlotte and Raleigh, but eventually figured out God was telling me to come to the Raleigh area. Caleb had just moved to the Raleigh area several months before I graduated and I remember telling him that’s where I was being told to go and I’d need him to be my friend since I didn’t have an established community there. He agreed we would still be friends and I made him promise that to be true even when he started dating seriously. He even told me that he would seek my approval of girls he was dating.

My first in person interview in the Raleigh area was on Caleb’s birthday in 2019. I told him I had the interview and he said he’d meet me for lunch. I didn’t even know it was Caleb’s birthday. He could’ve gone out with his coworkers for his birthday lunch, but he went with me. Shortly after that interview, I took a position in the area and hadn’t found an apartment yet. I couch surfed and went back to New London when I wasn’t on shift, but Caleb and I started to realize that we would be living in the same area. Eventually, the awkward topic came up of figuring out exactly what our relationship was. We agreed it was a strong friendship, but not like a sibling relationship either. We decided to have dinner to have a “business meeting” (yes, we actually called it that) to decide what we were. We ended up deciding we needed more time to process and think about it. We both heavily agreed that we were really, really good friends. A relationship could jeopardize that and we could lose more than a romantic relationship if we didn’t take it seriously.

Luckily, I found an apartment fairly quickly and moved in with the help of my brother, dad, and Uncle Boyd and Aunt Brenda. That night, everyone but my brother went back home. Skyler had planned to stay a little longer to help me settle in. We had started watching a movie when Caleb texted me saying he thought we should be more than friends. I remember telling Sky, “Oh my gosh, I think Caleb and I are actually trying the dating thing” and Sky wasn’t surprised at all.

We went on our first date sometime in mid-September (it’s been a running joke that we have to look up our actual anniversary on our notes because neither one of us can remember) and realized it felt the same as every other hang out we had.

That’s our story of getting to where we are now. We began dating and had one of the easiest relationships of any kind I’ve ever had. Caleb is one of the most gentle, caring, funny, and loyal people I’ve ever met. He may not always exhibit that, but he really is just a teddy bear.

The pandemic forced us to reign in some of our plans (travel plans, skydiving, etc.) and we became big fans of pillow fort-movie nights in my living room. Now that the world is more normal, we’ve been able to travel together and have some really great experiences.

But, my favorite experience of all is coming up. MARRYING that new boy in my 5th grade class! See, Caleb, I played the long game ;)

*We’ve decided this is indeed the first time we reconnected after college.

From Caleb's Perspective:

How did we meet? Man, that's a question. It all started a long time ago in a land far far away. Not really about the land far far away. We first met in 5th grade. My brother was going to a charter school and my parents pulled me out of elementary school and found a new school. It ended up being a small Christian school in New London, NC.

I can't say I exactly remember the first time I met Meghan, but what I can remember is being much shorter than her. I would say the times have changed but standing flat-footed we are almost the same height.

I think our first "romantic" encounter was in 6th grade. I was outside the school after school waiting for my brother to come zipping in to pick me up, when Meghan and her friend Mandy came up to me. I remember Meghan didn't say a word, but Mandy grabbed a note from her hands and handed it to me saying something like Meghan has something she wants to tell you. I really wish I still had this note or could remember but it was the classic middle school “I like you do you like me?” note. Being an 11-year-old, girls still had cooties. I rejected her. At the time, who knows, maybe she was devastated.

Through middle and high school I remember being good friends. Both having last names that start with “I” lead to being placed in similar locker spots; in fact, I remember her having a locker above mine. We had tons of classes together in high school - probably the one that sticks in my head the most was AP US History. We were two of three seniors in that class. Should we have learned history? Yeah, probably, but really we sat in the back of the class and just talked or sent memes back and forth.

Then we went off to college. Sophomore year I remember her coming to NCSU's Packapalooza it's a street festival and I was a member of juggling club. We were recruiting other folks to the club and she found me. We kept in communication until senior year of college. Not sure why but we kinda stopped talking. Who knows why.

Going into post-college, I think the story goes that Meghan went to the wedding of a highschool friend and somehow I came up in conversation, because let's face it, how awesome, weird, and handsome I am comes up alot. She reached out to me and we started talking again.

The first time we met back up in person that I remember was for a Durham Bulls game*. I could be forgetting something, but we met up with some of her friends from highschool. I don't remember anything really crazy about that night but I remember getting back to my apartment because we carpooled to the game. My roommate Garrett asked the typical “what's going on between you two” questions. I remember denying it and just saying we were friends and nothing was going on. That was probably June. The next time I remember meeting up was actually on my birthday. I was working in RTP and she had finished grad school and was back in the area for a job interview. Ironically we ate Randy's pizza. It's funny because neither one of us really like pizza, so I wonder how that happened. She didn't know it was my birthday as I really don't love celebrating it, but we had a nice lunch catching up. Fast forward a few weeks and she had got the job and was moving into an apartment in Cary.

That was really the timing when we started talking. I was in a spot in life where I wasn't exactly looking for a serious relationship, but wasn't opposed. I remember going to a sketchy Mexican restaurant to have a "business" meeting about should we date? At that point, we had known each other for 13-14 years and both were in the camp of not wanting to lose a friend. Well, we ended up after deliberating that we would start dating. We planned the first date later that week.

It was a strange first date in the sense I really didn't need to "get to know" Meghan. I had already met her mom, dad, bother, and sister. I mean, on a surface level we didn't really need to talk about that sort of thing; it was a nice change. I remember the date going well - having good conversations and enjoying her company.

That was the start. I honestly couldn't have imagined the journey we have been on for the last couple years. The trips we have been on, the conversations, the life we have gotten to experience. I wouldn't trade it for anything. I’m looking forward to a life full of new and old experiences with Meghan and I’m excited to close this chapter of our lives and open a new one.

*After discussion, we have come to realize this was indeed not true. However, it’s not critical to the point of our story, so we left it as originally written.

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