We met in Atlanta in 2019, on Sarah’s second day of her first job out of college. At 22, she had just moved to a new city and had absolutely no idea what she was doing. Mason was 25 and had been working long enough to be considerably more convincing. She noticed his blue eyes; he noticed her quiet presence and the way she paid attention to the people around her.
We were coworkers for a while before either of us admitted there might be something else going on. When Mason became single, Sarah and a coworker got the inside scoop, mostly for entertainment on a mundane Wednesday. A few weeks later, she learned he had been asking whether she was single, and suddenly there was more to consider. By the holiday parties, we were both paying attention. At one, Sarah remembers watching Mason dance in the center of the floor and thinking she’d like to know him better. At another, we spent nearly the entire night talking to each other and almost no one else. After that, we were inseparable.
Our early dating life wasn’t particularly glamorous. We were both consumed by new careers, so we found ways to be together anyway. Days were spent at work, where Mason continued Sarah’s education in dashboard building (her favorite hobby now), and nights at one apartment or the other, usually watching part of the Marvel series before falling asleep mid-episode. Early warehouse shifts made it easy to justify sleepovers. There was no sense in wasting time going all the way home. A few months in, COVID arrived, and our world became sanitized Whole Foods groceries, an exorbitant amount of DoorDash, absurd drinking games, afternoon walks, and constant time together. Eventually, we stopped distinguishing between whose apartment we were in and simply started living as if it were already shared.
A month into lockdown, Sarah announced she wanted a dog. This was not a question. Mason had concerns about whether she knew how to take care of one, but we drove to South Carolina anyway and came home with Winston, who at one stop managed to sprint away from both of us before his short legs made the escape fairly easy to contain. He’s been at the center of our little family ever since.
Just over a year into our relationship, we bought a house in Atlanta after happening to walk into an open house one weekend. We hadn’t exactly been planning to buy a house, but that was how things tended to happen for us then. One thing simply led to the next. We were supposed to move in the day after closing, but Sarah decided there was no reason to wait. Mason still remembers that first night clearly. Nothing had been moved in and nothing was planned, so Sarah sent him for a blow-up mattress while she ordered pizza and champagne and queued up a movie on a hotspot. We woke up in an empty house, and somehow it already felt like home.
A few years later, we started talking about where we actually wanted to build our life. We both had history with New York. Mason had lived here before, and Sarah had always found reasons to take the train in from New Jersey. There wasn’t a job or external pull bringing us here. We simply decided, together, that this was where we wanted to be.
Atlanta was where we fell into place. New York was where we chose what came next.
In the three years since, we’ve settled into a version of the city that feels very much like ours. We live two blocks from Central Park and spend an enormous amount of time there, usually with Winston. Mason likes long walks through the Ramble; Sarah usually decides we’ve already walked far enough. Mason convinces her to keep going, Sarah complains along the way, and she never regrets it.
Our usual orbit runs through the Upper East Side: bagels and coffee from Variety, wandering the Met, sunning with Winston outside Eli’s. The destinations matter less than the time between them: the conversations, the detours, the small discoveries of a city we now move through together. At home, we fall into familiar rhythms. There are shows we binge too quickly, meals Mason once had to convince Sarah to try (who resists Chipotle for so long? Seriously, green beans?), and parallel quiet time, with Mason working on his computer and Sarah lost in a book she can’t put down. Even the ongoing debate about where shoes and socks belong has become part of the routine.
When Mason proposed, the day began like most Sundays. We got dressed, picked up bagels, and headed to Central Park, although Sarah suspected something was happening because we were far better dressed than usual. At Bethesda Fountain, Mason got down on one knee and told her he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. Sarah more or less blacked out, standing frozen long enough that Mason eventually had to ask, “So, what do you think?” At which point she remembered to say yes. And then we continued our Sunday: coffee, the Whitney, a German beer garden, and a rooftop. It was a bigger day than most, but it still felt like ours.
After nearly seven years, the ordinary parts of our life have become the story: long walks, takeout, Winston between us on the couch, and the small moments that belong only to us. At night, when Winston has finally settled and the apartment goes quiet, Mason leans over to kiss Sarah goodnight, even when he thinks she’s already asleep.
Sometimes she just pretends to be, so she can catch him doing it.