A Butterfly Effect of a Love Story

We're engaged! 🥰

When I was 24 I fell in love for the first time. I had always been a piner- eager to be in a relationship, to be understood, to feel secure- but was also zero percent casual and constantly on the hunt for the big kahuna: a lifelong partnership with no surprises and no bad guys. An easy enough ask for your first-ever tumble into intimacy. A classically-easy fit to find with zero practice and no learned tools.

I wanted to do it once and I wanted to do it right.

My parents got divorced when I was eleven and we lived in five different houses before I was in middle school. A deeply security-oriented little creature, I was desperate to determine some certainty about my future; the crucial-so-crucial chapter of exploring, playing, fucking-around-and-hoping-you-find-out was an uncomfortable one. I remember confessing to my best friend in college, while pondering the concept of “sowing your wild oats,” I just don’t think I have…oats?

I wish I could tell that younger self that all oats look different, that sowing can look like figuring out which relational dynamics-romantic or otherwise- make you feel good and which ones make you feel bad, that learning through making mistakes can look like figuring out where your physical and emotional boundaries are and how to voice them, and you don’t have to make out with one hundred strangers to do it if you don’t want to. Different oats for different folks!

I moved in with that first love when I was 25, and life started feeling pretty bad pretty quickly. Things were off but we weren’t allowed to talk about it. I was sad and lonely and my body ached, but these clues from my bodyheartuniverse were falling on deaf ears. Towards the end of our time together I remember thinking, Maybe this is just what love is. Love is hard and painful and that means you’re doing it right. The concept of regularly checking in with myself to see if I was enjoying this voluntary, non-binding journey was completely foreign to me. My desire to moor myself to something “secure” trumped my previously-held notion that life could be fun.

I was so desperate to know what was coming next, that I stopped asking how I felt.

When he broke up with me I was completely shocked and shattered and the tiniest bit relieved; I was unmoored from a sinking ship but lost at sea nevertheless. I put most of my belongings in storage and stayed on friends’ couches and air mattresses until we could finally get out of our haunted apartment, at which point I needed a place to live ASAP. A friend suggested that I reach out to his friend, Beth, whose roommate was moving out two months before their lease was up. It would be so temporary, but I was so desperate. Long-term certainty felt too overwhelming- I would settle for one day at a time.

After eight weeks that solidified a lifelong friendship with Beth, I moved into my first-ever solo apartment. I dated and I learned. I got unstuck. I toured across the country for two years and performed in 28 states. I lived alone for 3.5 years and cherished it. I remembered what it’s like to feel Good, and discovered that I’m strong enough to navigate what feels Bad. In 2021 I moved across the country with my best friend, both of us single and brave. I started making a life for myself in Los Angeles, a city that felt as familiar as Mars. I learned I was capable of handling uncertainty without sacrificing integrity. I got reacquainted with my intuition.

Then in the summer of 2022, on a sunburned boat ride back from camping on the Channel Islands, I got a text from my old friend Beth. She said that she had never done this, but was hosting her fiancé’s best friend from college and was OVERCOME with the STRONGEST matchmaking urge in the WORLD for [me] and him. Sure, he was “currently” in a relationship and living in “New York,” but I could just meet him at her wedding that October and see how I felt. Days later she texted me that they had broken up (“😎😎😎😎😎😎😎🧙🏻🧙🏻🧙🏻🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮”), and I, like a zen monk who had released all expectations, responded lololol.

That October, Jesse and I were seated across from each other at Beth and Jake’s wedding, and I remember being struck with a quiet knowing. Without tying myself to outcome or pretending to see what the future held, I just knew that I wanted to keep learning as much as I could about this person. I remember thinking, even if nothing comes of our meeting, I’ll know that life can feel as good and as easy as it does when I’m talking to him; I don’t want to settle for anything less.

I visited New York that November and December, and by the New Year Jesse was planning his move to LA. He moved across the country in March, we moved in together that October, and this Spring we reset the stones from my grandma’s ring, with the help of LA jeweler Jonne Amaya of

OR ELOPE

(thank you Jonne!!! I’m obsessed with my ring!!!). On Memorial Day we got engaged, and now, who knows! At this point I’ve learned that it’s impossible to say what’s coming next. But we’ll keep finding out, together, one little day at a time.

5.25.25

Sending you all big love in such a scary, dystopian week. If you’re in a position to donate, here is a spreadsheet of organizations that advocate for immigrants’ rights in California.

Also, thank you to everyone who reached out after my post last week. I’m feeling so much better ❤️.

xx Olivia