Chapter 2: True Love Exists

Dec 10, 2023

I want to start this chapter off by saying this: you deserve to find the fairytale kind of love people dream about. You do. I know you don’t think you do, but you do, and I’m certain of it. I’m going to be an asshole about it and say I’m 100% positive it’s out there for you. And I can say that with my entire chest because I found it. And if it can happen to me, it can happen to ANYONE.

I’m the least deserving of this kind of love because I’m so insanely, disgustingly flawed. I have made SO MANY mistakes I can’t even count them. Big mistakes, too, not tiny ones. Not ones that would make you go “oh, that’s not really that bad.” Ones that make you go “fuck” and look at people funny. Yeah, that kind.

I met Nick on Father’s Day, 2020. I was working from home at the time, because of the whole pandemic thing, you know?

Side note, if there’s one thing you need to know about me, it’s that I am the definition of two things:

Type A
A Valley Girl

Truly, when you picture the term “Valley Girl” you’re literally talking about California’s San Fernando Valley, and that’s where I’m from. I even speak with a “valley girl” accent. My husband does a HILARIOUS impression of it.

And when it comes to the definition of “Type A,” look no further. They should put my picture in the dictionary next to it. I identify VERY deeply with Monica Gellar, and that should tell you everything you need to know.

Okay, back to how Nick and I met.

So we’re all working from home in our pajamas (my dog, Phoebe, had matching ones, naturally) and I was working from my kitchen table because I didn’t have a desk in my apartment. I finally got so sick of working from my kitchen table that I couldn’t do it anymore and asked my handyman if he would build the desk. He said he would, but he didn’t have anything available until three weeks later because everyone was DIY’ing everything back then.

Those who know me well know that when I want something done, I want it done right then or not at all. Because I’m crazy. I had already reached peak rage for working at my kitchen table, and had to have that desk as soon as possible. Truly, I felt like if I had to eat and work at the same table any more, I was going to die. Being Type A is FUN.

So, I went onto Facebook to see if I knew anyone else that could help me do it.

Where I live, our apartments are divided into little blocks, like our own little neighborhood. Here’s a literal map for reference:

Because we have a little community, we also have a Facebook Group just for us.

That night, I decided to see if anyone in the group could help, and low and behold, a reply:

And that, kids, is how I met your father.

I actually once wrote a whole post thanking Mark Zuckerberg for creating Facebook just so Nick and I could meet. I know, it’s really gross stuff. But that’s the kind of love we have.

When Nick and I laid eyes on each other, we just kind of stood there, staring.

Do you want to know the first thing he said to me?

“Greetings!”

I opened the door and he actually said “Greetings!” like an extraordinarily jolly British man, and I thought “where the fuck have you been all my life?”

Mind you, my dog and I were wearing matching pajamas. I hadn’t showered in days. I wasn’t exactly looking for love in that moment.

But there he was, glowing and PERFECT and TALL with GREAT hair. I was SMITTEN.

Here’s the thing, when the pandemic was first starting, no one wanted to be around each other, and especially not someone you didn’t know. That was NOT cool at the time. So when Nick arrived to build the desk, I told him I was just kind of going to let him do his thing and give him privacy. I thought it would make a stranger feel more comfortable about coming into someone else’s home in the middle of a deadly pandemic. If I wasn’t there, he could focus on building the desk I so desperately needed because otherwise I would die. I’m dramatic and it’s fine.

Anyway, I truly did leave a stranger alone in my apartment and went out for a walk with my dog and my dad. On that walk, I said to my dad “I’m going to marry that guy.”

Eventually, I did.

Because I met Nick and we have the kind of love that we do, and all of the things in the entire universe conspired for us to meet, I’ve come to be a little “woo woo.”

Boomers, here’s the definition of “woo woo” for you:

I believe there are things in this universe that we don’t understand and that there are forces out there greater than us. That belief mostly gives me purpose. It makes me feel like things happen for a reason, even if we can’t see it right then.

Over the course of my life, I’ve come to learn just how true that statement is.

Nick and I found each other despite being born on different continents. We had to live every single moment of our lives up until then exactly as we did, otherwise we wouldn’t have ended up in the same place at the same time.

As my favorite Mastermind would say, there was an Invisible String tying us together. (If you understood that: that one was just for us.)

That’s how I can be so certain that it’s out there for anyone. I really want to close out this lesson with a poem I wrote, just for people who are still looking for their person: