One evening at The Evergreen State College during the first week of classes, Shane went to visit some people at another part of student housing. Along the way he was introduced to a first-year student, Stephanie, who was not having such a great evening. Shane sat down with her for a moment to discover why she was upset and to see if he could provide any guidance.

Shane decided it was probably best if he distracted this first-year student from what was bothering her, so he asked her to come along at his evening events. They both discovered they enjoyed many of the same things. That evening they toured several of the campus highlights and even joined Shawn and his guitar on one of his Violent Femmes “Blister in the Sun” strolling guitarist walks.

Both were busy the next couple of weeks, with classes in session, and didn’t really speak much. Stephanie and Shane saw each other around campus and did the glance, look away, and then the slight blush, but not much else. They both knew there was a strong magnet pulling them towards each other, this scared Shane a bit.

Then came Halloween, where Shane’s dorm was throwing what would become a world legend of a party. The night was crazy with a record number of people in a campus dorm, on lawns, live bands, etc. Shane saw Stephanie through the crowd several times and wanted to talk to her, but each time he tried to get close he was stopped by others or distracted by something going on.

Eventually, the party dissipated and Shane was surprised to see Stephanie was still there. Later that same evening or maybe early morning, as they were both getting tattoos from a needle and thread with India ink, he learned she was waiting to talk to him.

Within a year “Shane and Stephanie” or “Stephanie and Shane” was spoken as one name as they were inseparable for the next couple of years.

Unfortunately, that ended when distance happened and communication broke down. If cellphones were a thing this would not have happened. Distance became greater as Shane moved to the northeast and Stephanie moved to California.

Years passed, and more years passed.

Then the time came. After 30+ years Shane reached out. Within a few weeks Stephanie was on a plane for a visit from Texas to Connecticut. Within a couple of months synchronicity came into play and Stephanie was moving to the northeast only 3.5 hours away from Shane for a new job.

First, they visited each other monthly, then it rapidly became every weekend where one or the other was travelling the 3.5-hour commute.

And one stormy evening when the power went out, Shane got on one knee with a ring in his hand. Stephanie said yes to the inevitable — “a commitment for all of time.”

Note: This was NOT written with any assistance from AI.