Through It All

by Isabella Dawson

Growing up, I always heard about “high school sweetheart” stories and never thought I would be one of those people; but, I met the love of my life at 16 and now at 24 I love him even more than I did then.

My fiancé and I were sophomores in high school when we first met. I was an overly confident (though secretly, morbidly insecure) girl, and he was just a cute guy I knew through friends. After drunken kisses at house parties and discovering our shared love for going to concerts, we quickly fell for each other, and it felt like I had known him deeply for ages. 

Fast forward eight years, and we have been through so much life together. When you meet someone at such a young age and have a long-term commitment to each other, you have to grow together throughout so many phases: starting college and deciding when you’re 18 what you want to do for the rest of your life, getting into careers you don’t know if you are happy doing, being asked a million times “when’s the wedding?!”  

Luckily for us, we still love and like each other for the people we continue to change to be through these phases. Not to say that there weren’t ever any hiccups in our relationship, but we always chose each other through it all; through our younger, teenage heartbreaks and hurts to now, as we navigate the confusing, ever changing “thing” that is adulthood.

And I’m glad to still love him, for the man he is now, for the support and joy he brings me daily, and for the boy that he was in high school, who taught me what it was to long for someone so deeply that nothing else mattered.  

I feel so lucky to have met someone early in my life who understands me innately; he can read what I am thinking just by looking at me. I cherish all our small moments at home with our two dogs, stealing kisses in the kitchen, and doing puzzles on the weekend. I look forward to marrying him and traveling the world together.  

Who knows the people we will be in 20 years, but I do know that I have found my person to go through it all with.