The story of one’s life is accompanied by moments whose significance grows so big with the passing of time, it begins to overshadow anything that happened before. In August 2012, Ethan’s moment was centered around blue pants, and the redheaded volleyball player that was parading them around the cafeteria. In an instant and with wide-eyed ambition, Ethan turned to his PIC, Michael Shanahan, and jokingly stated that she would be his and his alone. He was as hopeless as he was confident, though fate would, in no uncertain terms, guide Ethan closer and closer toward her path. He is me, and this is my story. Over the next several months, I made moves—subtle though they seemed, A girl named Hannah Meecham began to occupy more than just my passing thoughts. I held her hand before I introduced myself. It was in a car ride to a concert, culminating in a formal introduction sometime later that evening to her and a couple of her friends (now bridesmaids) in which I stated, “you all are beautiful…especially you.” Months passed. MONTHS. By spring 2013, Hannah became a familiar face on a small campus, but still a stranger in my own little world. One night at a party, she said goodbye to me—I was caught off guard, as we were still too cool to acknowledge each other. Yet, I left that night with the understanding that I was visible in her world. I existed, if only for a moment, as someone she would give her words to. That was high praise. She’d commented on a Beatles Instagram post shortly after as well. Good music taste to boot? Say no more. I knew I’d have Rev. Stancampiano’s blessing.

Cue the very next weekend. I arrived at a house party in an outfit akin to pajamas, sober, expecting to say hi and show face for a few minutes and drive a couple of friends back to campus. Rachel Gabel and Han had other ideas. Rach, fueled by crystal light and vodka, grabbed Ethan and thrust him toward Han, making an introduction amounting to “you all should talk”. It was at that moment, and each after, that she became the person he would compare everything else to. Over the years, that has become the foundation of my life. It’s this idea that our love is something that encapsulates every other emotion—happiness, despair, euphoria, all of it, flooding out of her eyes and into my soul. It’s a feeling of completeness, of walking together toward what Love truly is. Each stage of life since, she has been by my side. That one constant in sea of variables. When there’s one set of footprints, they are hers, and so am I. Always, all ways, in this life and to whatever comes next. I love you, Hannah Mitcham.

The day my parents dropped me off at Oklahoma City University, I distinctly remember walking around campus with my dad and complaining to him about the lack of cute boys I had seen. Yes, I obviously had my priorities straight. The truth is, if boys were my priority, I probably shouldn’t have committed to a college where the female population far outweighed the male, but still my hopes were high. Due to the lack in quantity of eligible bachelors at our school, my best friends and I created the ever sacred game of “dibs”. The rules are simple.. if you saw a boy on campus that you were interested in, you better be the first to call dibs or he was off limits. As the fates allowed it, I won the game of “dibs” on a mysterious soccer player named Ethan Berney. It wasn’t in the cards for Ethan to be anything more than an idea in my head and someone my friends teased me about for almost my whole freshman year. That is until the creation of an anonymous twitter account called “OCU Crushes”. OCU Crushes served as a platform in which you could send the account a secret message about your crush and they would anonymously tweet out your declaration of love. I already had a secret crush, so this was the perfect opportunity to shoot a secret shot at the cute soccer player. So, with the help of my friends, the tweet was written. “I wish Ethan Berney would give me a private soccer lesson”. It was fun, it was topical, and it kept my secret crush, well, a secret. That night it was published onto the twitter page for the school to speculate about. But much to my dismay, another tweet was posted that night from OCU Crushes too. It was one about me. I got angry at my friends for being mean and tricking me. I was convinced they had written it to tease me, but they insisted that wasn’t true.

Fast forward to that weekend. It was a typical Saturday night at the small college of OCU where we gathered for some… wholesome… studying? (cough cough partying). I was there with my friends when I saw Ethan walk in. I’d like to say I took fate into my own hands and confidently approached Ethan that night, but apparently I needed a little push. My best friend Rachel decided to take that “push” literally. Despite my desperate attempts to stop her, Rachel physically dragged me across the room and shoved me into Ethan. “You guys should talk”, she said and proudly walked away. (Thanks Rach) A slightly awkward introduction turned into 6 hours straight of conversation. I remember we both kept covering our mouths because we couldn't stop smiling. The person I thought Ethan would be, could never compare to who he really was. The sun was about to come up and we reluctantly knew our night had to end. Before he left I told him I had one last confession to make. It was me who wrote that OCU Crushes post about him. He smiled and shook his head and told me “I wrote the one about you too”. It was the perfectly ironic and picture perfect ending to the most perfect of nights. The night I met my soulmate. Believe what you want, but I knew that I was going to marry Ethan that very first night that I met him. It was a feeling of connection I had never experienced before. I had met another human who was already a piece of my heart and soul. I am thankful for an unexpected, yet life changing night, and a silly twitter account that led me to Ethan Beck Berney.