Have you ever heard of the invisible string theory? It is a theory of fate stating an invisible string connects two people throughout their lives, regardless of distance, time, or circumstances.

Officially, Ryan and I met in our dorm in the first few weeks of freshman year. Unofficially? Well it’s hard to say exactly, but sometime in middle school is likely as our Davidsonville Soccer coach (shoutout Steve) would periodically have his girls team scrimmage against his boys team at practice (we learned about said shared soccer coach many years later when we became friends in college). It’s also possible that we crossed paths at track meets having gone to neighboring high schools (who’s to say - I had no idea who this kid was). Safe to say that invisible string had us connected for a while!

Ryan and I ended up in the same friend group mostly made up of other people who lived in our freshmen dorm. We’d all try to find hikes to do together, go out to parties together, and hang out around campus whenever anyone wasn’t busy, or even sometimes if they were (Ryan consistently came out to bother me on the balcony of our dorm when I was trying to get school work done). We also had a bit of a harmless prank war going on which resulted in a very angry Jake and a stolen traffic cone being hidden in Ryan’s room (he was less angry than Jake, but still not thrilled with me and Lauren). Being a fairly active and outdoorsy friend group, I found it a little surprising that only Ryan and Lauren were game to try surfing with me (others would eventually give it a try).

Okay also I conveniently left out some important details from freshman year I’ll condense them into a timeline:

2019

September: friends yay!

2020

March: COVID… womp womp

May 20: Sarah, Ryan, and Lauren go hiking in MD!

May 26: Sarah and Ryan went hiking alone and Sarah brought homemade cookies! (nothing happened you goofs we’re just friends)

July: College friends come to Maryland! Everyone comes over and hangs out at Sarah’s house :)

August: Sarah takes Ryan and Lauren surfing!

Okay glad we’re all caught up :) Now that Ryan and I are surf buddies we hang out all the time, sometimes surfing alone, sometimes with other friends. One long weekend sophomore year a group of us decided to go camping up in the Pisgah National Forest (a magical place). I obtained a pretty fun leg injury the week before playing intramural kickball (Ryan will also claim injury from this game, though his was not as bad), but I did not let this slow me down. After a long day of hiking (sorry guys) and enjoying the gorge and falls, we spent well into the night hanging out playing some campfire/ drinking games. Please don’t ever ask me to play Cheers to the Governor again… A little over a month later Ryan and I were home for Christmas break and he asked if I wanted to be his girlfriend which caught me way off guard!!

Let’s return to the timeline for a moment to make sure it’s all connecting:

2020

September: Ryan buys a surfboard

November: Friend group goes on a camping trip! Sarah makes everyone hike 9+ miles, Neil forgot shoes, it was FREEZING outside at night, lots of campfire shenanigans, and a great time was had :)

December 29: Ryan asks Sarah to go hiking (nothing out of the ordinary), they get Chick-fil-A on the way (again, done this a hundred times before) THEN RYAN ASKS SARAH TO BE GIRLFRIEND??? Sarah says yes :)

And the rest was history!