Lockdown brought me back my best friend: Part 4

It’s been three and half years since we reconnected in lockdown and our lives have changed, a lot. In July 2022, I got a promotion at work which enabled me to move to Bristol. We entered the next stage of our relationship. Navigating our relationship, living and working lives together. I was nervous for how this would work, I moved away from London and my friends. I have lived with a partner in the past and had an awful experience, I didn’t want to lose the relationship we had built or the spark. I was wrong to be nervous, we slotted right into each other’s lives and I feel so lucky that we have built a relationship on a friendship and just laugh constantly. We had a tough time as a couple at the end of 2023 with grief on both sides of the family, we were there for on another and got each other through it. Although it was a tough time, we felt even closer and started talking about the future seriously, wanting to think about the next step, buying and building a home together and if we are lucky, a family.

After a tough time for all families, my Dad and Step Mum wanted to go back to Turkey for a family holiday and invited us to join them. We were so excited to go back to where we first met, 11 years ago to the day. When talking about the holiday, we realised that this place had so many connections to us as a couple and our families. My parents took me to Turkey as a baby, his dad and Step-mum had their honeymoon there, we celebrated my uncles 40th there, his mum goes regularly and is her favorite place and almost all our grandparents had been there at least once in the past. As cliché as it sounds, it felt like we had so many touchpoints to this one area, that we felt it was impossible that we would not meet one day.

On the 5th July 2024, we flew from Bristol to Dalaman and headed down to Oludeniz. As we went as a group of 9, my partner suggested that we go back to the hotel that we met for drinks one night and go and watch the sunset. A night just the two of us.

On the 7th July 2024, we went out that night as boyfriend and girlfriend. We came back to the villa that night, as fiancés!! Proposing to me on the beach at sunset, 11 years on from the day we met, in the place that we met!

Lockdown didn’t just bring back my bestfriend, but also my future husband! ❤