A walk with Seneca and Garrett

I just walked around town with this couple in Austin, Texas.

Maybe a timeline cleanse with everything going on: Seneca Bryson and Garrett Dailey met 3 months ago. Now they’re going to get married and make babies.

Their story is about timing and alignment and luck and love.

I’ve joined a free community walk today called The Board Walks to walk with strangers and have interesting conversations.

Seneca sees me on the walk and introduces herself. She reminds me that we met before.

The last time I saw her was two years ago at a 2-hour cocktail party.

I have this bad habit where I often forget people’s names but I can remember obscure details of our conversations.

I remember that we sat on a sofa near the front door and talked as the party was winding down. I remember that she loves to dance, that she was making new friends in her dance group, that her birthday was coming up, how I pressured her to host a dance party, and that she was running a growing design company.

But now she tells me how she shut down her business “because what I really want to be is a wife and a mother.”

This surprises me. The directness and the certainty. I almost stop walking.

She shut down her business to become a wife and a mother?

I ask her to say more.

“I was just spending so much time on my business. And I didn’t have time to do what I really wanted, which I now realize is to be a wife and to be a mother. That’s what I want. That is what will make me happy.”

Seneca is younger than me. She’s 26 and she speaks with a vision and a purpose that I haven’t heard in most women her age.

“I started my business because I wanted the flexibility to transition into a life of motherhood. But I wasn’t getting there. I was spending all my time on my clients and my work. So I shut it down and I got a normal job. And now I feel like I have my life back. I made space and then I met my boyfriend, Garrett. And now I’ve been able to embody taking care of someone, making life easy for him, and nurturing our relationship. I love it. I feel myself becoming the person I want to be.”

She is happy now. She’s happy in life and she’s happy to be telling me about it.

We keep walking. Garrett joins us. I ask her what she likes about him.

“He’s so honest. I trusted him right away. At first I was scared to share everything. I didn’t want to contaminate him. But he told me- he said, I want to see all of you. The good, the bad, the everything. And that just terrified me. But it also made me want to go deeper with him. He loves me for everything, for all of me. How he holds space for me is one of my absolute favorite things about him. I’ve never been loved like this before.”

Garrett smiles as she talks. It is a good smile.

I ask him what he likes about her.

“She’s so smart. She likes metal music. She likes people watching more than sports. She cares for me truly and deeply. She listens to the smallest things and then surprises me. Like buying kimchi when I mentioned I want to try it barely once. And getting me an eye mask I said I liked. She’s incredibly thoughtful.”

They’re good together. I feel like this is an interesting story or one I haven’t heard before.

But I have walked three miles in the Austin heat and my shirt is soaked through.

I must be getting dehydrated and I should drink more water but I want to keep talking to this couple and learning about their love and their vision.

What was their first kiss? I ask her.

“It was our first official date. We were walking around South Congress and we talked for hours. We started talking about what we want in life. Everything was just lining up perfectly about how we wanted the same things. And we just looked at each other, both wide-eyed, realizing that this might be it. And he just held me and hugged me and we kissed right then. It was amazing.”

I think it is amazing. It is a purposeful love.

We talk more about purpose and trust and being aligned as we continue to walk around the lake in downtown Austin.

They make plans for a road trip. He wants to show her New Mexico.

They tell me I should do my own road trip to interview people and date and look for my person in different cities.

“It would be like that guy on Twitter, you know, who did the Tokyo Blind Date thing? That would be epic.”

I tell Garrett that the Tokyo Blind Date guy is me and we laugh. He loved the adventure and is happy that it helped me figure out what I want.

I think about Garrett and Seneca and I wonder if it is a story about being in the right place, meeting the right person, at the right time.

They think it was.

This is a woman who was ready to meet her husband. And a man who is ready to become a father.

Seneca and I keep talking as we walk.

“I worked through some things in my personal life and then I was just ready. I had this gut feeling inside me that said: I’m going to go to an event and I know that I’m going to meet my husband.”

That weekend she met Garrett.

“I think my energy had shifted. I was ready. And then we both showed up to this walk one morning and we started talking.”

We stop at a break and I ask if I can take their picture.

They look good together. Seneca and Garrett’s relationship makes me think that you can’t force someone into a timeline or a plan.

Because sometimes love isn’t just about meeting the right person.

Love is about meeting the right person. With the right plans. At the right time.

Both people have to be ready. And it takes two to dance.