How Megan Met Matt
This essay initially appeared in the Monday morning newsletter on 7/29/24.
Last week, I had a lot of fun writing about how I’m approaching wedding planning.
Today, I’m also writing about something wedding adjacent and something I’ve been wanting to write about for a while… the story of how Matt & I met! I personally think it’s a really special story and I love looking back and realizing just how many little moments lined up perfectly for us to meet.
I’ve wanted to write it all out for a while now but couldn’t decide on the perfect time. Maybe I’m thinking of it now because I’m so excited for the bridal shower Matt’s side is throwing for me this weekend or maybe it’s just completely arbitrary, but for whatever the reason, on this Monday morning in late July, it feels fun to write it out and reminisce.
So, grab your cup of coffee with me and settle in because we are traveling back in time – eight years ago to be exact – to when this love story all began…
2016 (yes, all the way back to 2016!)
The summer after I graduated from college, I moved to Chicago to pursue my dream of living in a city and to work for a public relations firm (the company I still work for today! Though now I work for one of the specialized consultancies connected to the firm).
Looking back, I don’t know how I wasn’t more nervous about moving to a completely new city where I only knew a couple of loose connections. The type of fearless you can only be when you are 22, I guess!
I was adjusting to living on my own and to Chicago, but things dramatically changed for the better in September, when my friend Maura called to tell me she had gotten a job in Chicago and would be moving to the city later that month. I was so excited! Maura and I went to school together kindergarten through high school and then to different colleges (Maura – Florida State & me – University of Florida).
It was one of the best things that could’ve happened. Being in similar situations (both new to the city, both living away from home), we experienced life together, grew closer and became each other’s family in a new and unfamiliar city. Plus, we had a ton of fun together. I really don’t know if I would’ve stayed in Chicago as long as I have had it not been for her!
2017
Another great part about Maura moving to Chicago was that she had some friends from college living here as well. She introduced me to some of her sorority sisters – Macalla, Emily & later, Sabrina – and the five of us really hit it off.
Meanwhile, Matt had just moved to Chicago and was settling into his apartment in Lincoln Park getting ready to start his first job post-college.
2018
In 2018, we entered one of my favorite Chicago chapters: Maura, Macalla, Emily, Sabrina & I all ended up moving into studio apartments within blocks from each other in Lincoln Park. It was so fun to easily bop from apartment to apartment or send a quick text and see who was around to grab breakfast, lunch or dinner. Ahh the memories!
2019
2019 was a big year of change! Maura made the decision to move back home to Florida from Chicago. While I was so excited for her next chapter, it really made me question what mine was. I didn’t know what living in Chicago was going to be like without her here. However, something in my gut told me I just wasn’t done with Chicago yet. I didn’t know what, but I felt like something else was waiting for me here.
Unbeknownst to me at the time, it was also a time of change for Matt! Matt accepted a job at the University of Notre Dame and moved from Chicago to South Bend.
2020
Well, we all know how this year went – even more change! I end up moving back home to Florida for four months and at times wondered if I would ever back it back to Chicago and if life would ever feel normal again. If I was questioning my next chapter before, I really was now (see this newsletter & this newsletter, ha, plenty of existential crises).
Meanwhile, my friend Macalla started a graduate program at the University of Notre Dame. With absolutely zero romantic prospects on the horizon, I jokingly told her to keep an eye out for anyone she could set me up with. After all, people furthering their education and Catholic? It was kind of my target demographic!
Macalla mentioned that one of the guys in her cohort seemed really great (out of a program of about 40 students, they got placed in cohorts of 4).
The great guy’s name?
Matt
2021
2020 turned into 2021 and months pass by. Things start returning to normal and I kept busy, starting my new job and getting back into routines post-pandemic. I tried to get back in the practice of dating, but nothing transpired into something more. I still sometimes wondered about that ‘great guy from Notre Dame,’ but things hadn’t lined up for us to meet yet…
And then my friends and I decide to plan a Notre Dame football weekend for the fall.
September 18, 2021 – my friends Emily, Macalla, Molly and I road tripped to South Bend for the Notre Dame-Purdue game. The weather was perfect, the mood was great, we were tailgating and having fun and guess who showed up?
Matt and I are introduced, and I promptly offered to give him one of our shamrock tattoos… and that was that! We spent most of the day together, talking and getting to know one another. I had never hit it off so easily with someone. I was smitten!
The day altogether is so vivid in my memory, but it’s funny to think about the memories that really stand out in my mind. One was an exchange my friend Emily and Matt had when the three of us were walking around campus:
Emily: “So, Matt, are you going to stay in South Bend now that the master’s program is over?”
*Me: anxiously holding my breath to see what he would say next*
Matt: “No, I’m thinking about moving – maybe to Indianapolis or back to Chicago.”
Emily: “Oh, you should definitely come back to Chicago.”
Man did I just want to jump up and down and hug Emily right there, right then!!
October 2021 – Matt and I kept in touch here and there. It was exciting, but I could feel myself slipping into a familiar pattern of anxiously wanting to know what would happen next. But at the same – and I really can’t explain why – I also felt a sense of calmness? I didn’t know how this would all work out, but I had a good feeling it would. And I knew I wanted to enjoy seeing how things would unfold.
Then, Matt let me know he would be visiting his brother in Chicago a weekend in October.
The weekend he’s coming is the same weekend my friends have tickets to a concert. And Macalla and Emily once again work their magic: Emily is going to be out of town and gives me her ticket to the concert. Meanwhile, Macalla texts a couple of her friends from the program – including Matt – to see if they want to get tickets and go to the concert. (Thank you, friends!!!)
We all meet up at a bar before the show and I’m so excited to see Matt again. While my heart is already beating fast as soon as I see him, Matt very casually mentions to me that he got a job in Chicago and – oh by the way – is moving here next month. The bar is so loud I have to ask him to repeat it again to make sure I heard him right.
I’m pretty sure I looked like the biggest fan of this band at the concert that night because of the smile plastered across my face. But truth be told, I can’t even remember any of the songs they performed. 
November 2021 – Matt moved back to Chicago and back into the apartment building he was in in 2018…
… which just so happened to be the apartment building right across the street from me (the apartment I’d been living in since 2018!).
And the rest – as they say – is history.
Timing is everything! Matt and I talk about how it’s wild to think we could’ve met earlier (since, technically, we were neighbors in 2018), but how glad we are we met when we did, when we were both a little older and settled into ourselves.
It’s also reassuring to think about other invisible strings that are being woven right now. What will I look back on one day and recognize as important connectors to something larger?
I love you, Matt! Here’s to invisible strings, the universe making things happen and really great friends and their connections 
