I was instructed in a college class to find a pen pal to write to, in order to connect with others on a form of communication that has been lost in our now fast paced world of technology. Through the world of computers and pure fate, I stumbled upon Brannon on a pen pal website! After a compliment was made about his adorable Pembroke Welsh Corgi on his profile picture and discussions about how old people tell the best stories… Brannon and I decided what better way to continue our interesting and thought provoking conversations but through pen and paper.

    So it began! Brannon living in the sunshine state of Florida and I living in the cold, rainy state of Washington wrote letters to each other for approximately a year. During that time, we both got excited and exchanged phone numbers. The phone conversations happened almost every day, discussing random events throughout our day, while still writing to each other about tedious holiday activities we had to prepare for. Not long did our long distance pen pal friendship begin to flourish into a relationship that neither of us could imagine.

Suggestions of visiting one another came to mind, but then diminished after realizing the fear of  “How could one travel to visit a person on the other side of the country, without physically meeting them?” Thoughts of, “What if he is a con artist? What if she is this man in a jail cell, conjuring up lies, in order to only kill him when she gets out?” Therefore, I suggested if after a year this friendship ~pen pal relationship was still intact, I would go ahead and visit Brannon. Also I Googled him to make sure he was a real person and that helped! Brannon agreed.

    

Then we met and all is history! He liked me, I liked him, and we had chemistry. Though I had to go back to Washington and finish college,  Brannon flew to see me just a few months after my visit. After a couple months passed, I did the same,  meeting him half way in Las Vegas, Nevada. Eventually, Brannon visited me one last time on my graduation ceremony, and then we both went on a cross country road trip for a week. We drove through the Cascades, over Death Valley, camped in the Grand Canyon, passed through the endless roads of Texas, and finally reaching Tallahassee, Florida. I spent a few days with Brannon before I had to go to Miami for a volunteer opportunity. After a week or so, and that volunteer opportunity fell through. I decided to just up and leave in the middle of the night, while discretely leaving a note , of course. Then off I drove back to Tallahassee! I knocked at Brannon’s apartment back door, in the wee hours of the early morning, and asked if I could stay with him.

WE have been inseparable since!