Prequel 🧍♂️
During my mid 20's, I was in multiple back-to-back relationships. Each relationship ranged from weeks to 1.5 years. My last relationship ended right before I turned 30 💔. I was mentally exhausted and drained. I needed to do soul searching on myself, figure out what kind of relationship I wanted to be in, and how to maintain a healthy relationship. I decided to boycott dating 🚫👩🏻❤️👨🏻.
For 2 whole years, I was happily single 😄. I started spending money on myself, putting myself on unexpected adventures, and eventually evolved into a spontaneous extrovert 🗣. Soon, I started to open up to seeking a relationship, but not fully active nor putting myself out there. By the end of the third year, I was actively looking. I tested the online dating app 💗📱for a brief moment, but it wasn't for me. I wanted to meet someone organically where I would actually be interested in the person rather than try to be interested in a stranger.
Meet Jacki 👩🏽🤝👨🏻
In 2018, I was at work eating lunch at the cafeteria table. I noticed a petite young lady 👱🏽♀️ at the lunch area glancing around for different food options. She grabbed a salad 🥗 and walked away 💨. I'm like, who is she? One day, I was in the kitchen area and she happened to enter the area. Me being the jolly and friendly extrovert, we conversed and introduced ourselves. Her name is Jacki. In my mind, I'm like hmm, is she Indian or Latina, I wonder.. We would bump into each other more often at work, saying hello and having small talks.
One afternoon, I was printing/cutting papers for a board game. Jacki happened to walk by and asked what I was doing. I explained myself and asked if she was interested in playing this game during lunch. She agreed. I coordinated this game over lunch and she participated. She started showing up to games over lunch more often and played different games with the lunch crew.
During the winter holiday time, there was barely any work and most people were on vacation. She would come by my area and chit chat 💬🕑 for hours every day. Even after the holiday break, she would stop by my desk every so often to socialize. We bonded very well! I started to take interest and decided to ask her out for drinks after work. At first, she said yes. Then, she copped out on me once, and then twice - so, I thought she wasn't interested 😕.
One Friday, I was on my way home towards the train station after work. I ran into her outside and we walked together. It turns out that she was free the evening too. She told me lived nearby and if I wanted to come over to have a couple of drinks 🍻. And so I did and the rest is history.
Living Quarters 🏢 | 🏠
She lived 2 blocks from work. I stayed over her place during the work week because I'd rather walk 2 blocks to work than to commute for 35 minutes. Because we were dating at work, she wanted to keep it a secret 🤫 since dating at work felt like a taboo. We went to work at different times and then left work minutes apart. When going home, we would meet up at Pee Alley so that no one from work could see us entering the building (where she lived) together. Pee Alley is the side alley of the building and it literally smells like urine 🙊.
I lived at her place for 6 months rent free. When her lease was up, she planned to live with her parents in Naperville half the time and the other half at my condo. Because she didn't charge me rent, it was only fair that I didn't charge her rent. She migrated all of her belongings to my place. After several weeks, I noticed that she never once lived a day in Naperville. She became a permanent resident at my condo.
Enter The Dolce 🦊
Jacki loves her dog Dolce, but we couldn't afford the time to take care of her, walk her, feed her. Dolce lived in Naperville with Jacki's parents. At the time, I was not working and was studying at home full time. I proposed Dolce to stay with us. I took care of Dolce during the day and she took care of Dolce during the evening/night. Dolce became a resident on Nov 2018, another rent-free resident.
Dolce hates me, like a step daughter disliking her new stepdad. She always tried to bite me, or at least, protect Jacki from me. We hated each other for an entire year. She was a furry afro-looking dog , very feisty. Once in a while, she would respond to my command "give paw" and gives me a paw 🐾. She got her first haircut during a hot summer and she was really cute 🐶!
We started to bond over time. I even took her to work on Feb 2020. She clung to me at work like a puppy following her mother. I became alpha when Jacki wasn't around. We are like best friends up until Jacki was around 💁🏻♂️🦊.
When the office started opening again (during the pandemic), I would go to work once per week. Dolce would get very excited to see me when I came home from work. She starts barking, wagging her tail, and then licks me. Dolce has accepted me into her pack. Now, she would cuddle with me on the couch as I watch TV. When she needs help with her food, she comes to me at my work station to ask for help with feeding. Sometimes, she wants me and Jacki to be together. So she comes up to me while I am working and gets me to follow her. She leads me to Jacki's office and then just stares at us.
Common Ground 🔌
I first travelled internationally to Peru 🇵🇪 in 2015. It was a whole new experience and I loved it! Jacki is a huge globetrotter 🌏. She has probably travelled to 40+ countries. Iceland 🇮🇸 is our first international trip together. Since then, we've travelled to Mexico 🇲🇽, Panama 🇵🇦, Korea 🇰🇷, Japan 🇯🇵, China 🇨🇳, Ireland 🇮🇪, and Vietnam 🇻🇳.
Iceland Trip
I have a strong passion for board games, so I tried to get her into it. She enjoyed playing Guillotine, Machi Koro, Settlers of Catan, Terraforming Mars, etc, but she was never excited about it. After 3 years into the relationship, I decided to play Terraforming Mars again. After 1 game, something sparked inside her. She loved Terraforming Mars 💖! We played several games of Terraforming Mars over the spans of 2 days. She got so excited about games that she started looking into expansions and similar games 🤓🎮. She wanted to buy ~5 games and I told her to try the game before buying them blindly. I could tell she was let down by the tone of her voice. The next day, I texted her to buy it since it was close to our anniversary. She was ecstatic! She ended up purchasing: Underwater Cities, Imperial Settlers, Gizmos, Race for the Galaxy, Everdell, and Terra Mystica.
I never got into music festivals. EDM music is okay, not my favorite. Our first music festival together was Spring Awakening. It was interesting. We went to her favorite music festival, Electric Forest ⚡️🌳. That festival is eye opening and is my favorite festival. We have another festival in August, Burning Man🔥👨🏻. We both have never been and we really look forward to it!
Electric Forest Family 2022 (missing Mo/Tony/Wayne/Steve/Jalen in this pic)
Impact 💡 | 💪🏻 | ❤️ | 🏆
She introduced Tony Robbins to me. After attending a Tony Robbin's conference, I was fired up 🔥. Many light bulbs have lit since. I became more and more motivated in life and career. A few months after the conference, I've changed my study habits from Monday-Friday 9am-5pm ☀️📘🌖 to Monday-Sunday 9am-9pm ☀️📚🌑. In anything I do, I always ask myself: how do I optimize and be the best at it. My confidence shot up like a rocket. I have no fear 🚫😨 in anything I do (except heights 😰).
I joined The A-Suite for Jacki, a global community for leadership and inspiration. I once attempted and failed the 75 Hard challenge 😖. I didn't have any plans in the near future to attempt the challenge again. Jacki/A-Suite wanted to do the challenge and that pushed me to try again. This time, I completed it 🏁! By accomplishing this mental challenge, it gave me great motivation to accomplish anything in life.
I'm a huge proponent of health/nutrition 🏃🏻♂️/🥗. She studied Ayurveda and educated me on a holistic health view and different kinds of food. Since 2014, I considered myself very healthy. Now, I am ultra health conscious.
I was raised without showing emotions. I wasn't taught to say "I Love You" to my loved ones. It takes a bit to get accustomed to it and I'm still working on it. I've learned how to show emotions and care. We have many differences and we still do, it's a never-ending learning process. We grow together and I've matured a lot. I've also learned to open up more 💗.
I've never felt like I was an adult/father. I've looked at animals as second class citizens my entire life. She has changed my view on how to treat animals. I've never felt more father-like around Dolce. She is my daughter and I love Dolce 👨👧. It is very nice waking up next to her 🐶🛌.
I took a pre-screen coding test with Fetch Rewards and did not pass because I didn't complete the exercise. I spent the weekend trying to figure it out since it became a personal mission instead. I've finally gotten it to work! I had no plans to submit it because I didn't they wouldn't allow it. Jacki encouraged me to resubmit because, what could I lose? So I submit it and they scheduled a Phone Screen ☎️ with me. 2.5 years later, I became a very successful engineer 🎖👨🏻💻! It wouldn't have happen if it wasn't for her! Thanks wife!
I took on the project to build the Fetch software engineer internship from scratch. I've had many hurdles and ran into a couple of major issues. When posed with an issue ahead, I usually heed to her for advice. I've learned how to be a great leader 🏅. I couldn't have done it without her. She deserve many 🌮s!
Tie The Knot 🪢
2 years into the relationship, Jacki made it clear that she wanted to take our relationship to the next level. We decided to look for an engagement ring and that I would propose when I'm ready. Crafting a ring in India would be more affordable than purchasing a ring in America. Her family happened to have an India trip planned in the near future. The ring was crafted 🔨💍 in India.
Fast forwarding to August 2020, I've been working on building the pergola ⛩ on the rooftop. To celebrate the finished construction, we had our close friends over. For some odd reason, all of the females wore hoodies. It's summer folks, where are your tank tops?! After lounging on the rooftop for some time, I said "This roof is amazing". Suddenly, all of the girls got up and lined up in front of us. Starting with the leftmost person, one by one, they slowly unzipped their hoodie unravelling the sentence "Will you marry me?" as I went on one knee 🧎🏻♂️ with the ring 💍 in my hands. Lam has gained a level ⬆️.
A couple of months later, we talked about planning the wedding. We didn't know how long the pandemic would last, 1 year, 2 years, or maybe 3❓ A reception would have been tough considering the safety of our family. Also, we felt that as soon as the pandemic is over, the venues would get booked and spike in price. It just made sense to have a small ceremony with our immediate families and family friends. When mid November came around, there was a rise in COVID cases which reduced the maximum indoor capacity down to 10 persons. Given that number, there was no way the ceremony would happen.
Right before Thanksgiving, we both caught COVID 🦠. Being in quarantine, I stayed home in Chicago while Jacki stayed in Naperville. Our great friend Ashley, also an officiant, signed the marriage paper in Naperville and thus, we are pronounced husband and wife 👰🏽♀️🤵♂️. I wasn't even there! Today, we are happily married over a year. I look forward to getting fat together 😍 and visiting all of the countries in the world 🌍 with you. I love you wifey 😘👱🏽♀️!