“How did you two meet?” It’s a question I’ve gotten so many times I stopped counting. But I’ve only gotten better at telling the story.

In the spring of 1998, at 18-years-old, I took a flight from MacArthur Airport on Long Island to O’Hare International Airport, alone. I flew alone because it was hard enough for my family to buy one ticket for me to “check out” a University rather than two or three for my parents to do the same. I was being recruited for basketball at The University of Chicago.

I spent my first day at The Michael Jordan Restaurant for lunch, in conversation with the coach who recruited me, and the captain who loved her team. Then the evening with the player I would be staying with for the weekend and the boy who was trying to woo her outside her window. The freshmen took me to a movie and then a toga party (despite my dad telling the coach that I wouldn’t enjoy frat parties). I wore a turtleneck sweater. And had a blast. By the time we walked across the quad the next morning on the way to her first class, I was as smitten as window boy. I wanted to go to The University of Chicago more than I’d ever want to go anywhere else, and it seemed silly how long I had toiled over other schools, many of which rejected me.

One of those teammates there the night of the toga party was Kealey. A year older than me, a Minnesotan, and a person who would eventually become an “aunt” to my children. Something we’d dream about over late-night conversations of growing up, getting married, and staying friends. Kealey graduated a year before me and went to New York, her other dream as long as I had known her. There she secured a job with JP Morgan and sat one row away from Evan, a guy she immediately liked and eventually dated. We didn’t know it then, but Evan and my husband Mike had spent the previous four years like Kealey and me. Except they were at Brown playing baseball.

Two years later, I reached out to a group of friends and wooed them down to North Carolina, where I was living and working and making very little money in my first job. I promised a fun week at Myrtle Beach for anyone who could fly in. Nine friends raised their hands, including Kealey and Evan. A week before the trip, Kealey called me and told me that Evan couldn’t come. He wasn’t able to take the time off after all. But his best friend, Mike, was going to take his place.

“You’re bringing your boyfriend’s best friend on vacation?” I blurted.

“No, no. It’s not like that.” She assured me. “Actually…I think you’ll like him.”

“I’m not going on vacation with all my friends to meet some Wall Street fat cat.” I spat back.

A week later, I picked up Keaely and Mike from the airport, said hello, and promptly started ignoring him.

But Mike is Mike. And he got my attention. He rolled into the group seamlessly. Fun and up for anything. He was kind and generous. One afternoon, while everyone had dispersed to the beach or a nap, he and I had a great conversation in the condo. He told me about his dream of trying stand-up comedy and how he was going to pursue it when he got back to the city. He was not a guy that jumped into a room and demanded attention. But he likes a challenge and has always dreamed big. I thought that was incredibly cool.

Over the next year, I moved to Chicago and reunited with a bunch of friends from college. Mike came out to visit with a group of our New York friends. I saw him again when I went east to celebrate my parents’ anniversary. Meeting up in Central Park on a perfect summer night, he handed me a copy of his comedy DVD from a recent show, and we spent the evening talking. Much easier, I noticed, than any date I had been on in Chicago. The following week, I sent him an email with a subject line “wondering” and invited him to the wedding where he’d know many of my friends. In Iowa. He said yes.

He asked for the name of the hotel so he could secure a room. A gentleman. He showed off his baseball skills when we all went to The Field of Dreams (a must if you’re attending a wedding in Iowa). An athlete. He wanted to know if I’d consider dating long distance when the weekend was over. A dreamer.

We began flying back and forth between New York and Chicago, and I joked that it might not be as fun if we were flying back and forth between less exciting places. But with Mike, it would have been. Two months later, on a Chicago city bus, he asked me if I’d ever consider moving to New York, and I told him that I couldn’t afford to do it on my own and I didn’t want to live together unless we were married.

“Maybe we should talk about that,” he said.

And we did.

Two months after that, he flew to NC to surprise me with my family the day after Christmas and proposed in my parents’ living room after everyone else had gone to bed.

Seven months later, we got married in Chicago on July 22, 2006.

Kealey and Evan got married that October.

I see her at least once a year, and the four of us just went away together to celebrate this milestone.

We joke that our story is a little bit like a movie. And maybe it is. But it reminds me to be grateful for the people we meet as much as the experiences we share. To trust my gut and my own timeline, even when it seems that nothing logical makes sense. And to celebrate every chance I get.