Our Love Story

Some love stories begin with a first date. Ours began long before we even knew it would become a love story.

We were childhood neighbors, and in Grade 5, we even became classmates. Back then, we were simply two kids growing up around each other, never imagining that our story would one day become something more.

Our families were connected too, although in a way that can sound a little complicated at first. Through adoption, we grew up knowing each other as part of the same extended family. Chin’s adoptive father was the uncle of Julius’ mother, which technically made Julius her cousin’s son on paper. But since Chin was adopted, there is no blood relation between us.

Because of that family connection, though, romance was probably the last thing either of us could have imagined growing up.

And perhaps life knew it simply wasn’t our time yet.

After Grade 5, Chin’s family moved away. We went on with our separate lives, lost communication, and didn’t see each other again for many years. Childhood became a distant memory, and neither of us ever imagined that our paths would cross again.

But in 2021, they did.

Life brought us back together in Manila.

By then, we were no longer the two kids who once lived near each other and shared the same classroom. We had grown up, lived completely separate lives, and become different versions of the people we once knew.

At first, reconnecting felt a little awkward. After all those years apart, we still carried that childhood idea of being connected through family. Neither of us expected anything romantic to come from seeing each other again.

Then came one simple invitation.

One day, Julius invited Chin to go with him to a church in Antipolo.

There was no grand plan behind it. No dramatic confession. Not even a carefully planned first date.

But somehow, that simple trip became the beginning of everything.

Little by little, the awkwardness faded. Our conversations became easier, spending time together felt more natural, and somewhere between reconnecting with someone from our childhood and getting to know who we had become as adults, something changed.

We found something neither of us was looking for, but somehow felt right.

The funny thing is, we don’t even have an exact date for when we officially became a couple.

There was no big “Will you be my girlfriend?” moment and no particular day when everything suddenly changed. We simply reached a point where we understood what we had become to each other.

Somewhere along the way, without even realizing exactly when it happened, there was already an “us.”

So whenever people ask how long we’ve been together, we simply count from 2021, the year life brought us back to each other.

Looking back now, there is something beautifully unexpected about our story.

We started as childhood neighbors.

We became Grade 5 classmates.

Life took us in different directions and kept us apart for years.

Then, when neither of us expected it, in a different city and at a completely different stage of our lives, we found our way back to each other.

And sometimes, we wonder if our love story really began in 2021.

Maybe it began all those years ago, we just didn’t know where the story would eventually lead us.

Because somehow, the two kids who once lived near each other and shared the same classroom grew up, met again, fell in love, and eventually chose each other for a lifetime.

From childhood neighbors,
to strangers for a while,
to finding our way back to each other…

and now, to forever. 🤍

1 Corinthians 13:7

“Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”