Tell us your love story!
We met in
August, 2013 when we were both working as Public Defenders. New to the city and
the job, Elana was lucky to be immediately enfolded into a tight-knit friend
group within the office. Whether rehashing each day's courtroom adventures, or
earnestly debating the relative merits of the local restaurants, there was
always somebody to grab a drink and talk something over with - indispensable
friends of the type who reliably respond to your court emergency texts within
10 minutes, and always make merciless fun of you when you even marginally
deserve it.
You're all probably
astute enough readers to have guessed by this point that Jen was one of these
friends. More settled, having been in practice for 3 years by that point, Jen
was just as friendly and welcoming as everybody else, but maybe (if we're being
honest) a little bit quiet in a way that Elana (mistakenly, it turns out) read
as aloof. In a way, in the beginning, we were as distant as two people who are
extremely close can be. We'd eat lunch together almost every day, but would
generally be talking to one of the other 6 people at the table. Nevertheless,
we flashed upon shared tidbits - like how we both slept on air mattresses for
too long when we first moved there, our close relationships with our siblings
in different cities, and our appropriate reverence for the genius of pizza
nachos.
Over the years, those
flashes turned to sparks. And moments turned to hours. Now years. We continued
to bond over big things like injustice and the stress of fighting to serve our
clients, and small things like our serious quest to find the best donut in
town, our enthusiasm for long walks that end with strong drinks (coffee and
otherwise), and our mutual appreciation for the magic of a good rainstorm. And
those many big and small things transformed from the basis of a great
friendship to the foundation of a beautiful relationship.
What about the proposal?
We had two! We knew we wanted to get engaged and start
planning our wedding, so we started browsing for rings together to get a sense of
what we each liked, but we agreed to each individually choose the final ring
and plan a surprise proposal for one another. The opportunity to plan something
particularly special and romantic was important to each of us. What we didn’t
know before the proposals was that there’s also an incredible intangible
element that’s unique to both asking somebody to marry you and being asked that
we are both very glad we got to experience from each perspective. It’s this
incredible moment of immense excitement and vulnerability that’s followed by
the deepest feelings of love and affirmation.
Emotional details aside, the stories go like this:
Elana surprised Jen by
taking her on a trip to the Berkshires one winter weekend. We had actually been
out really late the night before so the threat of a hungover pajama day was
real. Instead, Elana woke up early (probably because she hadn’t actually been
able to sleep at all!) and came home with breakfast sandwiches and coffee. An hour or two later, Elana gave Jen a card
on which she’d written the same poem that Jen had first given to her back when
we stumbled upon the idea of loving each other.
We loaded up our pup and the overnight bags Elana had
secretly packed, and jumped in the car for a few hours of driving during which
Jen unsuccessfully tried to guess where we were headed. A few more sentimental notes were exchanged,
a carefully picked playlist was played, scenery was seen, and eventually we
arrived at our hotel. Assured we were running late to our destination, Jen was
told we could just quickly drop our bags before heading back out. When we came
down in the elevator, Elana made her close her eyes and walked her over to a
lounge area where the wonderful staff at the hotel had helped her arrange a
beautiful set up with flowers and sparkling rose. A knee was taken, sweet words and a ring were
exchanged, as were hugs, kisses, and a
promise of forever.
Through weeks of purposefully throwing one another off
and deft familial double-agency, neither of us had a clue when the other was
planning to propose. Jen was especially surprised by Elana’s proposal, because
she was sure that the elaborate plan she’d arranged to occur just 6 days later
was going to be the first proposal. While in Southern California visiting
family, Jen surprised Elana with an incredibly romantic private hot air balloon
ride. We had a picnic of champagne and cheese on a table strewn with rose
petals while the huge balloons slowly filled with air. We didn’t want to bother
the guys who were very busy setting the balloons up so we very happily drank
the champagne straight from the bottle. We drifted higher and higher, cozy in
our basket, watching the sun paint the sky a dazzling array of colors as both
the mountains and the coastline surrounded us on an indescribably beautiful and
serene late afternoon. Jen handed her phone to our pilot, who was kind enough
to take many photos and even a video, before kneeling down in the balloon
basket and proposing a lifetime of love and adventures. Literally floating on
air, we again agreed that we’d love nothing more than to spend our lives
together.
When did you know that you were meant to be with
each other?
It’s hard to pick one moment, because truthfully, we know
that we are meant to be with each other because of the incredible ease that we
share in co-navigating all of the many moments we’ve shared so far. We operate
on the same frequency, like waves called by the same tides, and absorb one
another’s dips and peaks not just with patience, but also with amusement; and
often with delight. But if pressed, there are a few special memories that this
question calls to mind. One summer
night, while in Vermont on a camping trip for one of our best friends’
birthday, the campsite Ranger suggested that our group might enjoy taking
advantage of that night’s full moon by going on a nighttime canoe trip to a little
island a bit up the river. We all agreed this sounded awesome, so as dusk
rolled around, we packed up a picnic dinner and some beers, had faith that our
dogs could balance in the canoes, and set off onto the water. It was lovely,
exciting, and serene…and also became an utter, albeit memorable, disaster.
We reached the shore and found the fire pit the Ranger
had directed us towards. Midway through roasting our hot dogs we realized we
were being swarmed by countless bugs, the dirt looked alive from all of the
movement. Naturally, we all freaked out and decided to leave as soon as we
could safely get the fire out.
We raced back into our canoes, and paddled back into an
inky blanket of pitch blackness. The division between sky and water was
completely imperceptible. The full moon we’d been promised was nowhere in
sight. We later learned that in an impressive display of city-slicker
ignorance, we’d failed to realize that there’s a lull between sunset and moon
rise. But in the moment, panic, darkness, and a vague sense of the direction we
had to row in were about all we had.
We were at least smart enough to bring flashlights, so we
tried to fire them up. The light in the otherwise total darkness seemed to
attract every flying thing for miles around. Jen, bravely seated at the front
of the canoe, was being pelted. A friend in a distant canoe screamed “are these
bats?!” another friend wept a bit, a pair of much-needed glasses was lost in
the water. We laughed together a bit, until Jen yelled back that apparently the
bugs were attracted to the white of teeth too, so she was going to have to stop
talking. Our canoe group drifted further and further apart, not that we could
see one another – we only knew because the intermittent complaints yelled
through the otherwise silent night sounded further away each time.
We whispered to one another, in our two-person canoe,
with our dog between us - keeping one another calm, trying to identify
landmarks from the trip up in the daylight, coordinating to stay on rhythm and
on course. We rested from our paddling and floated for a minute, taking in the
brilliant sparkle of a starry country night sky, listening to the water lap
around us, laughing together as we sat in the middle of what we could already
tell would be a lifelong memory. A blissful moment, in a chaotic scene,
interrupted by a brilliant streak. A flash of light marked the black sky -
there, moving, gone. In unison we pointed upwards, and yelled to each other:
“shooting star?!” Part joyful exclamation, part call to attention, part hope
that the other had seen it too. It was the first shooting star either of us had
ever seen and it felt incredibly special to share it. We agreed that it was for
us.
And life for us is much like that. We know we are meant
to be together because we keep each other calm in stressful moments, we can
pause to laugh at absurdity even in the midst of chaos, we have faith that if
we communicate and coordinate we will always find our way back. But above all,
when we are together, magic and adventure are never far off. We are lucky to
share a life of moments that feel too perfect to be real, and that can feel
like a whirlwind of opportunities and plans, where life is not always easy but
does always feel full of possibility.