One, a music educator from Long Island, the other a burgeoning white-collar office worker from Vermont. They met through friends if in a circuitous path—it’s not the most common love story of 2019, but it is our story.
They first met, or really, became cognizant of each other, on a wet, autumn evening in 2012. A storm barrelled up the east coast, but mostly wasn’t particularly interested in Washington, D.C.
A savage drizzle, of sorts, fell onto the city, as two friends made their way to a former church turned to housing with a pizza. Other friends, upstairs, searched for a movie to watch, and the friends were happy to join in the watching. While Joseph took a seat, Alyssa sat at the other end of the room, and while the two noticed each other, it would be many months before they would make good on actually getting to know each other.
Those many months later, outside the very same church turned housing, a tournament of a game involving throwing a Frisbee into a can started. While Alyssa was the owner of said game apparatus, you should know that Joseph (with Chip/Wallace/Wally/Das Chipper) years before had witnessed said game being played far away in Boston, so interest was matched. Team Alyssa And Joseph swept the tournament, and it would turn out a day that would be remembered.
In the years that followed, the couple went to many restaurants, watched way too much television, went to many but still somehow too few sporting events, rocked out to many but still somehow too few bands’ shows, drove way too many miles, went to many—many—trivia nights, suffered heartbreaks and celebrated wild successes.
It would come to pass that on a quite warm evening in July in Washington, D.C., Joseph would come home from a night out to find Alyssa at home, having just also spent a day out, and said, “Let’s go; we have something to do.” A quick ride down to the Washington Mall ensued, and the couple found their way to the Lincoln Memorial—dark outside, but lit up fully inside. After inspecting the inscriptions, and sharing personal meanings, Joseph pulled Alyssa out to the side, between columns away from the small crowd of fellow visitors, fell on one knee and blurted out the question.
We’re still writing our story.
