My better half and I are wrapping up another one of our signature 48-hour power vacations, because two days is the longest amount of time either of us can safely shirk our responsibilities. The last seven years have made us masters of these little trips. As usual, we're exhausted but satisfied, and this brief moment of relaxation before we head home in the morning has given me the perfect opportunity to reflect upon our first chapter together.

For us, Chapter One was a story of uncertainty, perseverance, and love, in that order. It was a tale of two ordinary women who took a chance, found common ground, and created something extraordinary. Mostly, though, it was just another example of the universe winning the fight to bring two old souls together.

And it all began nearly eight years ago with this text message from a coworker I hardly knew.

I had no idea how to respond. I suddenly wished I paid more attention in the seven months I’d spent working with her because I couldn’t even drum up what she looked like. Not that it mattered, but I was curious. Perhaps too curious. The answer to her question was no, but I wanted so badly to say yes. It was May of 2007, and I was stuck in a two-year relationship, too gutless to do anything about it. I was biding my time, hoping it would once again feel as good as it did in the beginning. Or — if I’m being honest — until something better came along. It took me fifteen minutes to reply.

My response was carefully crafted to answer the question honestly, flash her a bit of my charm, and leave the door of communication open, if ever so slightly.

What followed was several months of nonstop texting, no longer as estranged coworkers, but as two young women trying desperately to ignore the fact that we were falling in love. We nicknamed our little tryst “The Nothing” in a nod to The NeverEnding Story — a gesture that now seems appropriately prophetic.

When I was eight years old, I saw Home Alone for the very first time of many. I could never explain why, but something about that dopey pizza delivery guy lit a fire inside me, and I spent the next sixteen years of my life yearning to deliver pizzas. After college, the only thing standing between me and my dream job was a 3,000-pound heap of unreliable junk, more commonly known as a Ford Taurus. I ditched the beater, bought a new car, and filled out job applications with Pizza Hut and Domino’s.

Pizza Hut called first. I went in for an interview, got the job, and was put on the schedule for the following week. As I was driving home, the manager of Domino’s called and asked if I could come in immediately. He ran a quick background check, handed me a uniform, and put me to work that night. It was official — I was a real estate broker by day and a pizza delivery driver by night.

Little did I know, this moonlighting gig at Domino’s would change my life forever. And I had Pizza Hut’s consistent lack of any sense of urgency to thank for it.

She was in a relationship, too. Also unhappy. Also too gutless to do anything about it. In hindsight, our complacency was pretty pathetic, but we were only in our mid-twenties, which is about 15 in gay years. Unlike our hetero brethren, we don’t have the luxury of learning how to date in high school — or more importantly, how to break up. Our love lives are often nonexistent until we’re financially and physically capable of getting ourselves as far removed from anyone and everyone we fear might disapprove, or worse. Once we finally get around to dating, we kind of suck at it. I was no exception.

I was also no fan of small talk, and she somehow knew that from the get-go. All of our conversations were loaded with the good stuff. Fuck the hello, she had me at “tell me what role you think genetics play in determining intelligence.”

Be still my heart.

A month into our electronic affair, my girlfriend started asking about my new friend. I was constantly on my phone, and it was a flip phone, so she knew damn well I wasn’t doing anything on it other than texting someone else.

I remember lamenting about my failing relationship with a good friend over a drink at a bar. I admitted that I was talking to someone new, and that I wasn’t sure where it was going, but that it was probably just a phase. I told her that Paul Simon’s 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover kept playing everywhere I went, and that it was really starting to freak me out. No sooner had I mentioned it than we heard the song start playing in the background. Life gets pretty loud if you keep pretending not to hear it.

A week later, my girlfriend dumped me.

After the breakup, my guilty conscience threw me into a funk that culminated in a few weeks of drug and alcohol-induced soul searching. I ran off to the Florida Keys. I ate mushrooms. I smoked weed. I did my best to stay drunk. I sat on the beach for days trying to get my thoughts down on paper, hoping I could then make some sense of them. I had Pizza Hut deliver a tray of pasta to my hotel room, and it was all I ate for a week straight, using the hotel’s desk pens as chopsticks because the delivery guy forgot to bring a fork. Geez, Pizza Hut, get it together.

I lost myself for a while. I had melancholy shit like Radiohead and Nick Drake and Elliott Smith on heavy rotation. I got behind with work. I even contemplated jumping overboard from the midnight express ferry as it cruised through the Gulf of Mexico. I was depressed, much more so than I’m comfortable admitting. But, I was falling in love, one text message at a time, with the girl from Domino’s. I had The Nothing to trust and believe in at a point when I no longer trusted or believed in myself. The timing was impeccable. It saved my life.

By the time I made peace with myself and made it back to town, we were incessantly discussing the possibility of sharing our first kiss. We played it out in our little T9 world so often that we nearly psyched ourselves out of making it happen in real life. Our playful flirting had somehow evolved into agonizing restraint, with nothing to blame for it but our own fear — the fear that this one kiss was going to change everything and there would be no going back. The issue became even more pressing after she confessed that the only reason she began texting me in the first place was because she’d had a dream about kissing me.

Fate was screaming at us, and we still weren’t listening.

To this day, I can’t believe I made the first move. But, it had to happen or I was going to lose my mind. It had been six months! After six months, most couples have done everything, right? We hadn’t even kissed. I had to do it. I had to break out of character. To hell with fear.

I finally kissed her, at Domino’s, in the middle of the afternoon, right in front of the walk-in cooler. She smelled like a pepperoni. I smelled like last night’s whiskey. The phones were ringing. Customers were waiting. The harsh fluorescent lights made our skin look pallid. The bill of her hat made the approach awkward and clumsy. But, for everything it lacked in romance, it made up for with sincerity. That first kiss was equal parts innocent, exhilarating, and cathartic. It was everything I hoped it would be.

Three minutes later, we were thumbing out our excited reactions via text messages.

Our fear was validated. There was no going back. A month later, I told her I loved her. A month after that, we went on our first date.

If our relationship had been any more backwards, we’d have gotten married before we ever even met.

The next three years were a series of the typical ups and downs associated with growing as individuals and establishing ourselves as a couple. To further complicate the matter, she was the mother of a young daughter and had recently been promoted to the GM position, and I had just taken on a third job as well as a new business venture. We were stressed, our time together was always rushed, and the future made us anxious. We continued to live apart, so neither one of us ever really felt at home, and her having a kid meant that I did most of the sleeping over. I kept a toothbrush in my glove box. I missed my cat. We argued a lot.

In 2011, I suggested we consolidate our belongings and our bills and move into an entirely new place together. She wavered, which made me nervous, though most of her hesitation had to do with me taking on a full-time presence in the life of her child. I had zero parenting experience. In fact, all I had for a reference was the way I’d been parented, which meant that I thought all children were capable of fending for themselves before they start kindergarten. “Children are to be seen and not heard,” my mother always said. I had no reason to believe otherwise.

A few months later, I asked again and she said yes. We moved in together in late July of 2011 — a time I’ll never forget because it was the hottest two-week stretch in the meteorological history of Northern Illinois. Damn her for saying no to me in March.

It took us about four months to get acclimated to each other. More arguments ensued. More growth occurred. I have a terrible habit of leaving my socks wherever I decide to take them off, and she occasionally neglects to clean up her errant dollops of ice cream before they harden into gluey globs that I have to chisel off the counter with my fingernail.

These were just a couple of the idiosyncrasies we had to learn to find endearing about each other. It took some time, but I look back and cherish every minute of it. I'd miss those little globs of ice cream if I never saw them again. I’m not so sure she’d miss my rogue socks, but she humors me by saying she would.

Since December of 2011, we haven’t had a single argument. If that sounds absurd, you’ll just have to take our word for it. We’ve always been on the same page with regard to politics, religion, and money, and once we were completely honest with ourselves and each other, there was really nothing left to argue about. I truly believe this is how every relationship could be if we would all stop settling and start holding ourselves accountable for our own happiness.

We do have some pretty awesome debates, though. She’s the only person I’ve ever met who doesn’t back down to me, and I think it's fucking awesome.

Nothing for either of us has ever been easy. We were both kids who grew up way too fast, saw things we never should have had to see, did things we never should have had to do, and were put in situations nobody should ever be put in, especially as kids and young teenagers. We operate on the same wavelength, and it’s comforting to come home to someone who has never taken anything in life for granted, someone who has worked her fingers to the bone for everything she has, someone who never complains, someone who knows that every thing and every day is a gift. Someone who truly believes that love is the greatest gift of all.

Even though our lives are still pretty challenging — sometimes unbelievably so — we’re both happier now than we’ve ever been at any point in our entire lives. And even though we often feel like two warriors standing back to back with shields up to deflect the fallout of the entire world crashing down around us, we always manage to pick up the pieces and carry on once the dust settles. Our bond is what makes us strong. Our love is what keeps us sane.

In every conceivable way, she has made me a better person. She has lifted my spirits in the darkest of hours, and she has never, ever let me down. When I look at her, I literally shake my head in disbelief that such a beautiful soul exists. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't tell her how crazy I am about her, and I often wish there was a word stronger than love, because love doesn’t seem to cut it anymore.

She's selfless beyond comprehension, and she lives her life with compassion and conviction. She has more wit than I know what to do with, and her intuition is unparalleled. She challenges me every day in every way. She’s my other half, my much better half, the half that renders me whole, and I would lie down and die for her without any hesitation because I love her more than I love myself.

Every night before we fall asleep, I ask her how we got here, and every night she tells me, “you said no, and I said yes.” She’s referring, of course, to that very first text message she sent me, and how it didn't matter that my reply was no because she knew I meant yes. I find solace in this daily reminder that I have someone in my life who understands me better than I understand myself. Like I said, her intuition is unparalleled.

The truth, though, is that this journey really started with the dream she had. And if I hadn’t seen Home Alone at such an impressionable age, I never would’ve wanted to deliver pizzas. And if Pizza Hut had put me on the schedule sooner, I never would’ve been a delivery driver for Domino’s. And if I wasn’t a delivery driver for Domino’s, she never would’ve known who I was. And if she had never known who I was, I wouldn’t have been the one who kissed her in that dream.

Fate is a funny thing.

Wonderfully beautiful relationships can and do exist, and we should all be mindful of making sure we never settle for anything less. Was ours always this good? Of course not. We had our rocky moments in the beginning. But, I like to think that had it not continued to get better with each and every day, one of us would’ve had the foresight and wisdom to bail. We are not a reflection of our relationship, our relationship is a reflection of us. We didn’t make it work by throwing money and vacations and houses and furniture and pets and babies and marriage at it. And we didn’t work on the relationship, because a relationship isn’t something that can be worked on — it’s only an abstraction.

We worked on ourselves.

We had to mature. We had to make real changes in the way we thought about and perceived the world. We had to be alone and get lost in our own minds. We had to think about who we really were, and we had to stop identifying ourselves by our occupations, our family, our friends, our hometown, our pasts, or whatever else it was that we did. We had to be honest about our faults and our insecurities. Basically, it all boiled down to baggage, and we had to check that at the curb. There are no carryons allowed when it comes to relationships.

Becoming the best versions of ourselves isn’t easy, and we’re far from finished. When I ask myself what I want to be proud of in my final moments, material possessions and professional achievements aren’t what come to mind. If I think of myself as a pizza, those things are just the toppings — they’re great, but they cost extra and they have a tendency to fall off. The dough is what makes a good pizza a good pizza. The dough is what I want to pore over and perfect and be proud of. And who better to help me do that than the girl who makes pizzas for a living?

Tonight, I asked her to marry me.

My two-day marathon proposal enlisted the help of an artist in Singapore, a woodworker in British Columbia, a jeweler in California, the Gibeon meteorite, and nine handwritten popup cards spread out over 2,000 miles — all strategically orchestrated to tie our last seven years together into one very special moment atop one of the world’s tallest skyscrapers. I got us as close to the stars as I could, leaving the world far below us silent and insignificant. It was there that I handed her the ninth and final card.

A no and a yes got us this far, but we both know that our next chapter starts with a yes and a yes.

A love capable of stretching to the moon and back down to the earth deserves a piece of the meteorite that already made that journey.

And a bond like ours that will never be broken should be symbolized with a diamond that can stand the test of time.

I know you’re not a wearer of rings, so I am offering this pendant as the embodiment of my unwavering love for you, and I am hoping that you will continue writing the rest of this beautiful story with me.

This is me asking you to marry me.

I say yes. Will you?