To the literal end of the Earth
Through the banks of the James, the forests of Rothbury, the cobblestone streets of Lille, the fjords of Tromsø, and the ends of the Earth:—home is by your side.
Raul and I joke about how serendipitous our lives have been in leading to one another, so much so that we lovingly named our home Serendipity. Hand in hand with chance, the other word that underpins the relationship we have built together is choice, an element of love I have come to deeply cherish.
Raul and I met by pure coincidence. A friend of a friend turned out to be my neighbor, and when we were invited to the same party, our mutual early-twenty-something finances led us to splitting an Uber. Although this moment is technically when I met Raul, it actually marks the beginning of a different relationship: my friendship with Catherine Konieczny Kells. After that fateful Uber ride we became fast friends, then grew into life-long friends. Through another mixture of chance and choice, years later Catherine and her then-boyfriend, now husband, Brad moved into the apartment building across the street from me, further weaving our lives together.
Best friends are a package deal, which meant that as Catherine became a fixture in my life, Raul wasn’t far behind. I looked forward to when he would be in town visiting her. Brad would make us delicious brunches with a heavy dose of mimosas, and when Raul was there, he always brought unrelenting energy, ridiculousness, and intellect.
On a special, celebratory visit, Raul and I went with Catherine to try on wedding dresses. On the drive there, Raul played an ethereal, folky pop song that mesmerized me. I asked him about it, and he told me all about the artist. Huh, I thought to myself, I did not expect this from him. This is…deep, soulful. Hm, interesting.
The day went on, full of laughs and joy. About 6 dresses later, we returned to Catherine and Brad’s apartment. Brad cooked up a storm, which obviously called for multiple bottles of red wine, and over the course of that evening, something changed. Raul told us tales of his journey to the Nordics and to his friend’s wedding in Copenhagen. I regaled them with stories from my trip to the Seychelles. And then at one point Raul said something – something I cannot for the life of me remember, probably because of the wine. He said something sassy, with a glint in his eye and a playful smile, and I felt it. The spark. I can still picture that moment, because although I may have met Raul 6 years prior, that’s when I finally started to see him.
A few months later Covid hit, and along with it a delay of the wedding we were so excited to celebrate. Through 2020, Raul and I deepened our friendship while putting a pause on anything more than that, and Catherine and Brad used this postponement of their wedding to make progress on another goal. They bought a house in Richmond, where Raul also lived.
In January of 2021, when life started to open up a bit, I went down to visit them in their new home and city. I hadn’t seen Raul in months, but it only took a few moments for that spark to come alive again. Serendipitously, we ended up getting snowed in together for a few days. Those few days together proved to me that this relationship was worth a real shot.
This was the first of many choices we intentionally made together. Every step of our relationship, through all the ambiguity of the pandemic, the unknown of our futures, Raul moving to DC, us buying a house in Richmond – we kept choosing each other. We both saw the dream of a life together, how amazing it could be, if we were brave enough to choose it.
I’m surprised – and embarrassed – that it took me so long to see what was right in front of me. But once I saw it, throughout all the highs and lows of the last few years, I’ve known in my gut that he is the person I want as my partner. Raul is the best person I know, and I almost missed him. A different city, a different Uber ride, rain instead of snow – who knows? That knowledge sometimes grips my heart, triggering a fear that I still might lose him. The only thing that soothes that fear is gratitude. That this wonderful, ridiculous, loving man I will soon call my husband, and whom I choose to call my forever. My serendipity.
He’s chosen me, too.
Lexi’s story (Unabridged)
Little did either of us know that sharing an Uber would lead to sharing a life. I was in DC visiting a dear friend when she proposed splitting an Uber with her neighbor: Lexi. A 20 minute ride in the back a Toyota Corolla sprouted a friendship that lasted through years.
Years later, the friend who introduced us tapped on us both to be in her wedding party. On a trip to accompany her to prepare for the wedding, we stayed for dinner. It was November and each of us had gotten back from travel: her from the sunny and warm shores of the Seychelles and me from equally sunny and warm Arctic Norway. As we swapped stories, the seed of friendship began to blossom into something more.
When the world pressed pause in March of 2020, so too did our story. But as the world emerged from its Pandemic freeze, a rare Virginian snowstorm made us hunker down together for a few days. And friends became more—and more became a harbor from which we embarked on adventures.
On one trip, I had the opportunity to introduce Lexi to one of my favorite cities—and bars—in the world. North of the Arctic Circle, surrounded by the hyggeligt glow of a thriving city nestled among 400 million year old mountains, I asked one question.
