This story, OUR story, is one that started a long time ago, and it will forever be my favourite. This is the story of how I met my person, my soulmate, the one that I want to spend the rest of my life with. She made me believe in love again after I was convinced that it did not truly exist, and with her by my side I'm the happiest I have ever been. Her name is Vanessa, but I call her Ness, and my family likes to call her Nessy. She's my rock and she keeps me grounded when everything else feels unstable. Honestly, I wouldn't be where I am today without her by my side, and I will forever be grateful for her presence in my life. This is the story of how we fell in love, and every beautiful little moment in between.
Our story starts all the way back in 2016. I was in grade 6, she was in grade 7, and we both played middle school soccer. We played for different teams and went to different schools, because we lived a half hour away from each other. I met her during a game and as soon as I saw her, I was instantly drawn to her, she had my attention and she wasn't letting go of it. I played midfield for the beginning of the season and she played defence. I spent every moment I wasn't out on the field, watching her. At the end of the game, I really wanted to go talk to her but I never actually got the chance. We had a couple more games against her team and once again, I spent all my time off the field watching her play, never actually getting to talk to her, or being able to work up the courage to go talk to her.
The next season, I played again and I was super excited to see she was also playing. I was even more excited seeing the schedule and learning we would have lots of games against her team. My position got switched to defence and it was definitely a good move, plus it meant I could watch her play more. Their guys team didn't have enough players that year so she occasionally played on their team which was great because I also got to play a couple co-ed games with her after one of the guys from my school ended up getting kicked off the team, and because they wanted to make it more fair for the girls playing on their team. I only actually talked to her twice that season and never got any extra contact info for her so sadly there was no way for us to stay in touch, or really get to know each other better.
I also played volleyball and during every game, deep down I was hoping that for some reason she'd be there, just so I could see her again. I was friends with some of the girls from her school for a while and I knew her name so I would subtly try to get as much information about her as I could without being weird about it, in hopes that I could track her down and talk to her. I spent years trying to track her down on social media, sadly never being able to actually do it, however I knew the one place I would be able to find her is at the soccer field during soccer season.
The next year I was still only in grade 8 and she in grade 9 so she was playing high school soccer and sadly I didn't get to play against her. There were a few times where her team had games at the high school in my town so when I got the chance to go watch them, I would. In grade 9, I was out for the season due to an injury so I couldn't actually play, but once again, any time she had a game at my school, I was there to watch her play. I never ended up getting to play in high school for different reasons however I would've liked to if I could, and maybe I would've worked up the courage to actually genuinely talk to her and get to know her more. I loved the sport even though I wasn't playing it anymore and every time there was a home game against her school, I always tried to go watch them. I worked a lot so that wasn't always possible but I was always super happy when I could be there. She was such a strong player and I loved getting to watch her play. One day in grade 10 while I was watching her game, I had actually worked up enough courage to go talk to her. After the game, I shyly walked over and congratulated her on their win, but before the conversation could go any farther, I ended up having to leave and go home.
There were so many times outside of soccer where we could've and almost did meet. There were several times that we have discovered since we've been together, where we had almost ran into each other and could've formally met, long before we actually did. There were multiple occasions where we had been at the same place, at the same time, and very possibly could've crossed paths with each other, without even realizing it. we both ended up at a couple different multi school events and trips together because both of our schools had been there. There were also different events that we had both attended with our families on the same day, around the same time where we could've potentially met as well.
