Truman and Melissa met in February of 2019, in the most Gen-Z way possible... online! :)

Truman graduated from Marine Corps Boot Camp on February 22, 2019 and posted some sweet photos of him and his family in his uniform at his graduation ceremony on Instagram afterwards. Melissa just so happened to be browsing Instagram this same night and Truman popped up on her "For You" page for some reason. She instantly clicked on his profile, started stalking, followed him and patiently waited for Truman to do the rest of the work. Truman INSTANTLY liked a ton of Melissas photos, but never ended up messaging her, so Melissa had to send the first DM (no shame in my game). At this point Melissa had already messaged her best friend Kasey with screenshots of Trumans profile saying, "idk who this man is, but I think I'm going to marry him someday". All in all, Melissa was 100% correct, Trumans first message to Melissa was "Howdy Howdy", and they both knew the rest was history at that point.

After talking non-stop through text and snapchat, Truman and Melissa finally got to meet in person on March 4, 2019, the day before he had to leave for a month-long training in California. Their first date was actually a double date with Kenley (Trumans brother) and Carma (a great friend of ours) at Chilis in Kerrville. Truman left the next morning for training in California for 1 month and then as soon as he was done with this training, he got sent off to his MOS school in Jacksonville, North Carolina where he ended up staying for the next 5 months. We talked every day, all day if we could, we spent so much time on FaceTime and snapchatting, some days we would even spend 4 or 5 hours on the phone just chatting with each other. We slowly fell in love and knew we didn't want to wait for anyone else. Truman finally got to come home on August 29, 2019. We got to pick-up him up from the airport at midnight and went straight to Whataburger the first second we could (you will find this as a trend with us). Truman only got 6 days of leave this time so we crammed as much stuff in as possible during those 6 short days. September 3, 2019 we were already back at the airport dropping him off, as he made his long trip to Okinawa, Japan. At this point, we didn't really know where our relationship was going or what to expect. At this point Truman was officially working for the Marine Corps and still had about 3 years and 3 months left in his contract, where we knew he was spending the rest of his time half-way across the world in Okinawa. We quickly had to adjust to our 15-hour time differences. Truman was eating lunch when I was going to sleep and he was going to bed when I was waking up, but we would spend every second we weren't both at work FaceTiming. FaceTime and snapchat became our best friend because it was our only way to see each other and talk with each other. Truman finally got to come home on February 22, 2020. We had the longest, but shortest 21 days ever with each other. Little did we know that the day we dropped him off at the airport, March 13, 2020 was the day a global pandemic would begin, and we wouldn't see each other for another 2 and a half years until Truman got out of the military on October 21, 2022. Those 4 years of long distance all felt worth it the day we got to pick him up from the airport and I got my last and final reunion hug. We cried happy tears, knowing we would never have to say goodbye again and we could finally start our real lives together IN PERSON!!!

On January 29, 2023 Truman planned a perfect date night for the two of us, we were going to the riverwalk to have dinner at the restaurant we went to on our 1st official date alone, 3 years before. We ended up making a pit stop at The Alamo before dinner where Truman nervously proposed the second we got there. We then got to celebrate with Mexican food & margaritas, our favorites, on the riverwalk!

Our story has been full of adversity, but so much LOVE. We are so thankful for all of our friends and family who stood by our sides during our 4 years of long distance. At times we both thought we were crazy, sometimes people even thought we were making each other up since we had literally only seen each other 28 days out of a 4-year period. We are so thankful for all of the love, prayers and support we received during that time, and we CANNOT WAIT to celebrate our wedding day with you all soon!

With all the love,

Melissa Barringer (with some input from Truman)

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