Caitlin’s Story
Everything Has Changed
(Click to Listen)
TL;DR: We met, we knew, and we kept choosing each other.
Somewhere between coffee shops, big conversations, dance parties, and everyday magic, we built a loud, tender, imperfect life we love.
Scroll for the full love story.
⸻
The second I saw Caryn, something opened in my chest.
Like a door I didn’t know existed suddenly swung wide.
Like something inside me woke up and bloomed.
I’d heard of something like this before.
My dad used to tell us that at fifteen, he saw my (currently blonde) mom’s straight, jet-black hair across a crowded Blimpie’s and told his friends she was his future wife.
And somehow, incredibly, she was.
Years later, they found each other again in a room full of people, like the universe had been saving their ending for later.
And I’ve spent my life inside that love story.
Learning its language.
Learning how to listen for what’s true.
Just like me and Caryn, my parents were engaged four months into dating. So I grew up believing that when it’s right, you don’t waste time. I was lucky to grow up surrounded by stories like that.
Big, brave, unapologetic love.
The kind that doesn’t ask for permission.
The kind that rearranges your life.
The kind that knows within moments.
The kind that led Uncle Tony to ask Aunt Mary on the bottom of our 81st marble steps.
So when people asked if I was impatient with being single, I smiled and said I knew I hadn’t met the one yet. I trusted that waiting would be worth it. I’d have a dance party with The Supremes anytime I forgot.
⸻
And then I met Caryn.
The second my eyes met their green eyes, I just knew.
Time slowed.
All the cheesy movie lines I’d ever Irishly dismissed suddenly played like rolling credits in my mind, each one more true than the last.
It felt like recognition, not surprise.
As if they had stepped straight out of my Practical Magic recipe and into my real world.
Into a conversation the deep, knowing part of my soul knew I would want to keep having forever.
Like I was finally looking into the eyes I’d been searching for my whole life,
without ever really knowing I was looking.
And when we kissed for the first time that evening, my entire world shifted on its axis. I carried the imprint of that kiss for days; this quiet, humming certainty that my whole life had just rearranged itself around this new being.
Every sappy Taylor Swift lyric I’d never fully believed before suddenly made sense.
Have I known you twenty seconds, or twenty years?
Because somehow, in that moment, it was both.
And then, like magic tends to do, it stayed.
Just days after we met, we were already talking seriously about being together. One afternoon, in the middle of one of those “what are we doing and where is this going” conversations, a barista asked if they could take our photo. It felt sweet and random at the time. Like the universe quietly winking at us.
Later, I found myself stalking the 787 Instagram for weeks, hoping to find that startled-but-dazzled picture.
Not because I needed validation.
But because I wanted proof of what I already knew I was witnessing.
True love in its earliest form.
A month later, I took Caryn to Florida and watched that same truth reflected back at us through the eyes of everyone I love most in the world. Even strangers (in Florida!) who somehow seemed to feel it too.
And when my wise, clairvoyant mom, Trish, looked at us and said our love was pure, I listened.
When my nephew-son hybrids told me they’d never seen my smile look so easy, so natural, I let myself believe it.
I let myself smile wider.
I let myself be this happy.
Growing up, my dad set the bar for what care looks like.
He’s a king of small notes. Of random flowers. Of “just because.”
Of showing up in quiet, consistent ways.
So somewhere along the way, I learned that love isn’t just big declarations.
It’s attention.
It’s effort.
It’s remembering.
And then I met someone who lives that love language.
Someone who starts so many of my hardest days with handmade cards and little signs tucked around our home. With flowers I never have to ask for. With reminders that I matter, every single day.
It turns out, I didn’t just hope for that kind of love.
I was taught it.
And I chose it.
So yes, I U-Hauled.
Even though I spent my whole life joking that lesbian culture “wasn’t my jam.”
(Gay all day, y’all.)
But some people change everything.
Some people rewrite your rules.
Some people feel like home in a way you never saw coming.
⸻
Caryn is that person for me.
They didn’t just bring love into my life.
They brought a family.
They made me a bonus mom to Sydney and Amelia, a role I hold with more gratitude and awe than I ever imagined. Our days are filled with joyful chaos: dance parties, Ziggy’s Central Park adventures, belly laughs, and quiet moments that feel like life’s tiny miracles.
It’s loud.
It’s tender.
It’s imperfect.
It’s ours.
Together, we’ve built a home rooted in showing up, choosing each other, and choosing joy, even when it’s messy. Especially when it’s messy.
Says the girl who clumsily tripped over a heart of LED candles during Caryn’s guitar-playing, Adam Sandler–singing “I Wanna Grow Old With You” proposal, then started laughing in a way I hope we never stop, when Caryn clumsily tripped alongside me.
That’s the thing about falling together.
You build roots while you’re still learning to stand.
⸻
And soon, under the branches of two banyan trees, we’ll say yes to this life out loud.
A banyan grows by sending roots down from its branches.
It doesn’t just reach upward.
It builds outward and downward at the same time.
Strong.
Intertwined.
Impossible to separate.
That feels like us.
From the moment we met, we knew.
And now, surrounded by the people who shaped us, love us, and carry us, we get to begin again.
Rooted.
Open-hearted.
Destiny.
Home.