My all time favorite story is the one about how I met my husband.  It makes me so happy when someone asks me how we met, I just can’t hold in my excitement. It was the most magical, yet unexpected moment in my life.

It all started on a Tuesday, or was it a Monday. I can’t even remember. However, I can tell you that I was going out with a friend to “support” her because she was rejected from all of the post-graduate schools she had applied to that year. Basically, we were going out to help her forget about her problems, and as college students in Scranton, Pennsylvania, there is only one place to go on a Monday, or was it a Tuesday night: The Bog.

The Bog is a Scranton bar I frequented multiple days of the week, and at all hours. Luckily they served coffee, so we could even go in between classes. The Bog was always pretty low key, laid back, and just the right place to meet people. However, we were on a mission, and meeting people definitely was not in the plan for the evening.

My memory of the moment I first saw my husband begins with my friend and I sitting at the bar. The bar’s exposed brick walls were dimly lit and accentuated with pictures from a local photographer. It felt welcoming and comforting; the perfect place to hang out. We were sitting on our barstools, but facing away from the bar, talking to a group of people who were gathered behind us. I have no idea what the conversation was about, or who we were really even talking to besides two employees with whom we were familiar. I do remember realizing that some strange man was all of a sudden in our circle, listening or participating in this conversation with us. Let me correct that. He was the most handsome man I ever did see! Who was he, where did he come from, and how long was he standing there?

All of a sudden, I felt this magnetic pull. It was like there was a string attached to my heart, and I was being pulled across the circle of people who were talking and laughing and having a good time. Then, it was as if everything suddenly muted and I was floating away from reality. The world was obviously still going on around me, but I was no longer a part of it. Before I knew it, I was standing face to face with this man, unable to control the magnetic pull he had on me.

I was a quiet and rather shy young woman, especially around guys, so my next actions are either related to the fact that the magnet attached to my heart was also attached to my hand, or I had a few drinks in me. Regardless, I reached out and lightly tapped his shoulder and said “Who are you? You’re cute!”

And that was it. The rest of this love story is more than eight years in the making, and we have been inseparable ever since that moment. We were both in the Bog on that night for completely different reasons, and neither of them were to meet each other. The funny part was that both of us were “regulars” who never crossed paths. Later I even learned that my husband was stood up by another woman that night.  If she hadn’t stood him up, he wouldn’t have ended up at the Bog to meet me! It was serendipity at its finest if I do say so myself!