The Light Behind You

Here's where my life was at, at the time.  At some point at the end of April 2012/early May, I had left the band I was in, and was about to move to my second residence in Portland with two of my friends that I had moved out here with, and another who had moved to live with us months afterwards.

In May 2012, I met Karin Johnson (pictured) via the internet from of all places, anonidate (a loosely pseudo dating site that's basically a google maps map with pins that represent where you live, with a blurb about you and what things you're into.  It was created primarily for people who posted on 4chan, somethingawful, gamers, etc to meet).  I had used an okcupid account for years with no real results other than making a few friends who were never more than such other than a few brief exceptions.  Before I had met Karin, I had never really had a girlfriend - I had "dated' and slept with a few people, people who I might have seen a few times then stopped talking to, but never really had a real, consistent "relationship" of any sort in my life, though it was an absence I had perceived for most of my teenage/early adult life.

Karin and I got along great, and spent increasing amounts of time with each other.  It was wonderful for me to finally experience the sort of relationship where two people are genuinely enamored with one another, instead of it being awfully lopsided.  As I work at home, I'd often bring my computer over and just stay at her apartment for days, while she was in her final year of college.  Around the fall I ended up just basically living there, although I still paid rent at the house where my friends and I shared a year-long lease.

When this picture was taken, in July, I had gotten a "vacation bonus" from work, and wanted to use it on something for Karin and I to do.  I asked her what she would be interested in, and we ended up deciding on a place in Washington, a spa resort in/called Bonneville.  Before we left for our weekend stay there, we went on a hike at the gorge.  

Karin and I still live together, in a different apartment that we got after my lease ended at my house and she graduated college.  We're very happy with our lives together and recently someone we didn't really know at a party mentioned that we were "the cutest couple" because how one the same page we were about everything.