Luke graduated high school in 2016 and began attending USC in Los Angeles, and in 2017 I graduated and began attending Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colorado. Despite being long distance, we remained best friends and eventually settled into a long distance relationship (shout out to mom’s American Airlines benefits, those free trips back and forth were key here). In 2020, amidst the pandemic, we decided to spend the summer living together in Seattle. Luke “graduated” with his first degree while sitting on our living room floor with his laptop propped on the cardboard box we called a table that summer (it’s hard to justify furniture when you are only in the city for 12 short weeks!) We loved every moment of living together— thank goodness, because at the time, there wasn’t anywhere else to go! We had one last long distance stint left, then in 2021 I graduated, and in August we moved together to a cute little apartment in Hermosa Beach, CA.