It started on the dance floor. To be more accurate, it really started over tacos. Melissa and Chris first met briefly at a Mexican restaurant in South Williamsburg, Brooklyn circa 2016 through a mutual friend; however, this first meeting was as brief as it was unceremonious as Melissa had other plans for the evening and Chris was about to get scammed on show tickets (note to self, don’t buy unverified tickets off Craigslist).

Which brings us back to the dance floor. Months following what we will define as the “taco meet-and-greet”, Melissa and Chris made independent journeys to central New Jersey on the glamorous railway known as NJ transit to meet mutual friends for a road trip out to the Poconos. The trip’s endgame was a music festival being held at a luxurious hotel fully equipped with internal rooms with no windows, early 80s wood-panel décor and a restaurant that served grilled, greenish burgers. After a weekend of dancing and swimming (forgot to mention, there was an indoor water park!) and possibly too many Wawa sandwiches… OK, the right amount of Wawa sandwiches, Melissa and Chris found themselves alone on a dance floor, with their friends in different areas of the hotel enjoying the festivities.

As they listened to Anthony Naples (shout out to Queens), Chris slowly and nervously reached out to Melissa’s hand and, for a moment, the music faded out, the room felt empty, and they looked at each other and held hands.

The next day, Melissa and Chris shared a train on the aforementioned illustrious railway back to New York and talked like old friends. It may have begun on the dance floor, but that conversation, like the thousand more they would have moving forward, allowed their love to blossom much in the same way it continues to do today: through traveling, laughing, and enjoying each other’s company on this brief journey of life.