The universe first tried to bring us together years ago at the Palladium Night Club in New York City. There I was, nursing a cognac and a broken heart, when Angel approached and offered to buy me a drink. "No thanks, I can pay for my own drinks," I said, not knowing I had just turned down my future husband. (He still teases me about this.)

Years passed, and on a dark winter morning, fate decided to try again. I was heading to my job at Key Bank when the city bus doors opened, and there he was - an angel in a bus driver’s uniform. The moment I looked up, Cupid's arrow struck. Something felt familiar, like we'd known each other before - perhaps in another lifetime.

This time, we didn't let the moment slip away. Angel asked me out, and we've been inseparable ever since. Maybe it's because we're both old souls who finally found each other again, or maybe it's just that this time, the timing was finally right.

On December 12, 2021, Angel proposed with a promise that took my breath away. He vowed to marry me at El Convento in Puerto Rico - a place that had captured my heart four decades earlier. I still remember standing there at age 20, watching a wedding being set up in that magnificent hotel, and whispering to myself, "Someday I will get married here."

Now, forty years later, that whispered dream is becoming reality. Our love story proves that some dreams don't have an expiration date, and sometimes the best things in life are worth waiting for. From a missed connection at the Palladium, to a magical morning bus ride in Manhattan, to a historic hotel in Puerto Rico - our path to each other may not have been direct, but it led us exactly where we were meant to be.

They say when you make plans, God laughs. But sometimes, just sometimes, He smiles and makes your wildest dreams come true - even if they take forty years to unfold.