All in good time. Really.

There’s no way of writing this blog entry without it sounding like total gag-worthy PDA, so I’ll just apologize now. But this is post-worthy, if only in honor of our one-year anniversary.

After a series of dating disasters, (many of which, though comedic as they were, I did not detail here) I spent time reading (anything and everything) and thinking about what it was that I wanted for my future. Then, I went to Santa Fe, around this time last year. (Read my travel journal here, here and here.) October was the culmination of a transformative year. I felt conflict, closure and hope all in a month’s time. And when the time was right in both of our lives, I met Dan.

Though I worked in the same building as Dan, and always thought he was cute, I only ever saw him in passing, and was too distracted with whatever bullshit was going on in my life to take real notice of him. But after my Super October, I finally asked some friends, who had known him for years, for info on him. They were ecstatic at the prospect of us hitting it off.

Suddenly, I was back in middle school, with our friends as the go-betweens until Dan and I finally started talking on our own in November. Unlike with the duds I had dated before him, I had genuine butterflies while getting to know Dan. I quickly realized that my tongue-in-cheek Valentine’s Day wishlist had come into fruition. (OK, he wasn’t in his 30s or wealthy, but financially stable also works for me.) Can anyone say The Secret??

Admittedly, I haven’t done a very good job with my blog since meeting Dan, but I can’t blame him entirely. On one hand, we’ve gone on a lot of adventures in a short amount of time (international, cross-country and travel within our state). On the other, we’ve confronted family death and sicknesses (and Dan has more than proven what a supportive partner he is).

The full circle moment came when I brought Dan with me to Santa Fe this year, and I actually couldn’t wait to get home and back to “our” life.

I couldn’t have prepared myself for this past year, both positive and negative, but as it turns out, the song Dan dedicated to me in the beginning has never been truer: How could I love you less, now that I know you more?