We did not find each other by accident.

We recognized each other.

We have always said it feels like we’ve known one another longer... for a hundred lifetimes. As if this love has worn many names, survived many endings, and still found its way back to us. As if something old and patient kept returning us to the same place until we finally learned how to stay.

We met in the modern way, through messages and long conversations that carried more weight than they should have. Before we ever stood in the same room, there was already knowing... quiet, steady, unmistakable. While one of us traveled to Salem, MA, surrounded by history and ritual, that certainty deepened. Knowing that Jake collects journals and pens, vessels for thought, memory, and intention— a handmade journal was crafted in a small witchy shop. It was not meant to impress. It was meant as a way to show the love and care that was already blooming for Jake.

Before ever meeting, Coley knew she would marry this man one day and build an epic life together.

The journal was given as a gift on our first date. It was a promise to always see him, to appreciate his interests, and to find ways, both big and small, to be woven into each other’s lives. Our first date took place at a place that reflected who we already were: curious, creative, and grounded in shared play, Tabletop Café.

When we finally met, there was no careful beginning. Just the feeling of a soulmate remembered... lost to time and finally reunited. A kiss. A smile that felt less like an introduction and more like remembrance.

That night, we played Game of Thrones Catan. Over time, the game became ritual, a language between us. We reshaped it into something entirely our own: five boards, forty points, hours spent strategizing, laughing, learning how the other thinks. What we love most has never been the game itself, but the way we move together within it... patient, collaborative, fully present.

This is how our love works.

We are intentional people. We believe in growth, especially the kind that is chosen daily. We communicate openly. When strain appears, we meet it with care instead of distance. We soften instead of fracture. Becoming better, individually and together, is one of the ways we love.

Our life has been built through creation. We have made weekends sacred. We spend our Saturdays making matching sweatsuits and crafting. We play music by candlelight. We dance under neon lights. We turn kitchens into competitions, living rooms into theaters, blankets into forts. These moments are not distractions from life, but rather are the life we are building.

Choosing each other felt natural. Building a home felt inevitable. Becoming a family unfolded in quiet ways. We welcomed a dog after three months, sharing responsibility and shaping a rhythm that felt steady and true. Early on, we made things together with our hands... proof of the work we intended to put into the relationship and the experiences we would share: intentional oils on our second date, a tiled kitchen wall on our third. We began building spaces that became ours long before we named them as such.

When it came time to ask for forever, it was done with reverence. A blessing was sought and given on Christmas Day. The first promise of many followed... a proposal on a Friday in June. And to keep the moment sacred, every Friday became its own offering: wine bars, mini golf, Collect-A-Con pilgrimages to feed a shared love of Pokémon cards, and a family trip to Hocking Hills and The Wilds.

Of course, the moment arrived on Friday the 13th.

Because it could never have been anything else.

And it was perfect.

Just down the street from where we had our first date, Jake got down on one knee and, more certain than ever, asked Coley to spend forever together.

This love does not burn fast.

It burns deep.

It is chosen. It is protected. It is fed. It is hungry in the way devotion is — not for possession, but for presence. For growth. For the quiet, unspoken promise of returning to one another, even when the world shifts and time presses forward.

After a hundred lifetimes of finding our way back, we choose to remain — bound here, and bound to each other, for as long as time will let us exist.

“For a hundred lifetimes, we have found our way back.”