"I'm never getting married.", I said. And I meant it.
All throughout my teens and early twenties I was pretty set on never tying the knot.
Having kids? Nope. It really didn't even cross my mind as a possibility for my life.
There were too many places to go, too many things to see and to be honest my motto was: I do what I want.
The untraditional felt best for me. I didn't want to just check boxes and I never wanted to do something a certain way just because that was how you are "supposed" to do it.
For the majority of my twenties, it was just me. Everything I owned fit into my car and I liked it like that! Life was good.
Theeeeeeen came Tom.
It was 2013, and I was finishing up school. I was ready to get out of Las Vegas and do something new. Having lived on Maui briefly, I always wanted to go back. Hawaii became my biggest dream.
I was doing my research on making my way back to the islands when I decided to reach out to Tom. We graduated high school together in 2006 and after school he lived on Maui for three years. He had returned to the mainland and was living in Arizona when I sent him a Facebook message.
"Hey Tom, it's been a while, hope all is well! I'm thinking of making my way out to Hawaii, just curious, why did you leave?"
He wrote me back and let me know he missed living there everyday. He gave me some really good insight and after reading his message I landed on his profile.
Tom was tall and so darn cute. He just got back from Europe! "What a cool dude.", I thought. He was running races, snowboarding and traveling all over. Hmm.
We wrote messages back and forth for a couple days just catching up... it had been 8 years since we graduated! Tom mentioned that he was going to be in Vegas THAT WEEKEND and asked if I wanted to grab lunch.
That was that. We went to lunch and I swear to you, that day, I knew I was going to marry him.