There was a basement floor of the library at Salt Lake Community College in Taylorsville, Utah. I used to go there to meet with my students and to get away from the hustle and bustle of a college with nearly 30,000 students and the seven classes I was teaching across three different schools. At SLCC, I taught three courses in Composition, the maximum load for an adjunct professor, and I taught four more at two satellite campuses for other nearby colleges, covering everything from Intro to Communications to Public Speaking to Creative Writing. I was also signed up to teach a Teen Writing Camp that would soon begin at the University of Utah.

The only thing I loved more than the quiet of the basement library was a strong cup of coffee. And I needed both to make it through that workload.

I was on my way to my next stop when I saw her sitting there. Long black hair. A wide smile. A laugh that seemed to take over her whole body. We knew each other. Years earlier, she had taken a composition course from me. I remembered how nervous she was about earning an “A,” so she completed every extra credit assignment I offered, none of them easy. Most involved long readings and summaries, and I admired her diligence in finishing all of them during the short fifteen weeks of the course.

I had only seen her one other time in the years since. I was supplementing my income by waiting tables at a nearby restaurant when she came in with her then boyfriend. She was surprised that I remembered her full name.

“Prapasiri!” I called out.

We chatted briefly before she returned to her dinner.

Here we were, years later, meeting again in the basement of the school library. This time, we talked longer. Long enough that I began running late for my next class. I told her I hoped we would talk again soon. She smiled, and I left. But I could not shake the feeling that there was more, something unfinished between us, something still waiting to be said.

I didn’t have her number, so I did the next best thing I could think of. I found her email and asked her if she wanted to have a coffee with me. It took two weeks for her to answer yes.

We went to dinners. Walked through parks. Visited flower gardens. We ate entire boxes of peanut butter bars while watching Under the Dome. We worked out together, studied together at the library almost every day, and cooked for each other. She was waiting tables at a nearby Thai restaurant and had just enrolled in a program to earn her pharmacy technician license. She dreamed of pharmacy school.

I wanted to be a novelist, a serious literary figure, but in the meantime, I was hoping for a full-time teaching position somewhere. I had applied three consecutive times to SLCC and several other colleges, but nothing had come through yet.

A few months later, she began her pharmacy tech training. While I was at a Slipknot concert with my brother, I received a call from Hawkins, Texas, offering me a full-time position at Jarvis Christian College. I had never heard of Hawkins, Jarvis, or an HBCU, but I took the job. I told myself it would be a bridge, something temporary until I found a full-time position back in Utah.

There was not a question in my mind. I wanted her to come with me. We were already in love. She was the first person I had ever dated who shared my vision for raising children, one rooted equally in love and high expectations. She was beautiful inside and out. She was driven. She was fun. And she said yes. At least at first.

I would move to Texas ahead of her for about a month while she finished her pharmacy tech license, then she would follow.

When I arrived in Texas, I stayed in a very cheap motel and promptly got bedbugs. I was also assigned five courses, some with nearly fifty students enrolled, which made the transition overwhelming. Add to this that Prapasiri had called me and expressed some reservations about moving to Texas. Maybe it wasn’t the right fit. Maybe she should stay in Utah.

It was a lonely and itchy few weeks alone. Thanks to a laundromat and lots of drying cycles, I lost the bedbugs, and I really started bonding with the students at Jarvis. There was something special about them. I got us an apartment and slept on the floor. After lots of phone time and even a talk with my mother, Prapasiri finally agreed to come!

Those first months, we built every part of that apartment together. We owned five plates and barely enough silverware for two people, but we had each other. And we were happy.

Six months later, I proposed in New Orleans, beneath 150,000 lights.

She was accepted into pharmacy school at UT Tyler. With the support of Jarvis, I was accepted into a PhD program at Texas A&M-Commerce. We were married on January 7, 2015, at the Tyler Courthouse, with a larger ceremony for friends and family in Utah that May.

In the ten years since, we have welcomed two beautiful children. Isabelle is now eight and attends Brook Hill. Our son, Arthur, is two. We both earned doctorates. Prapasiri is a Pharmacy Manager now. I’m the Department Chair for Humanities at Jarvis, a place I truly belong and adore. We bought a house, sold a house, and bought a bigger one. We built two businesses. We buried my grandmother and many other loved ones.

We struggled for years trying to have Arthur, enduring one of the most difficult seasons of our lives. We saw countless doctors. I watched my beautiful angel get poked and prodded again and again with needle after needle for what felt like lifetime after lifetime. We lost one of our businesses after years of work, time, and money, and it felt like we’d lost all of it. Somehow, though, we gained back even more, in love, thoughtfulness, and humility.

In January of 2025, I was told I might have cancer and could lose my ability to speak permanently. For six weeks, I could not speak at all, to my family, my students, anyone. I was trapped inside my own mind, wondering if I would ever be let out again. In March, a specialist cleared me to speak. By the grace of God, there was no cancer!

Two months later, in May, my first feature film was released. I had written, directed, and produced it. In November, my first novel was also published. After ten years, I finally got to be the published writer I had dreamed of so long ago.

Through every tear, every success, every heartbreak and grief, I had my sweet love, my angel, my baby, Prapasiri Joy Judson. She believed in me when I was an adjunct professor juggling seven classes. I believed in her when she was a waitress dreaming of becoming a pharmacist. I cannot forget the girl I saw in the library eleven years ago.

Married now for ten years. And in between? Ah! The in between. It’s everything, isn’t it? I’ve known so many moments with her, seen her grow, and change, and challenge me, and challenge herself. And what a treasure it has been. I see her now in the community she serves, in Isabelle’s determination at her studies, and in Arthur’s elated abandon when he dances to the faintest song drifting in through our front window.

Love is not a powerful enough word for what we have, but it’s the best one we’ve got.

In November of 2025, I took her to the cliffs of Santorini, Greece, where we renewed our vows with our children and my mothers standing beside us. It was a dream we first spoke of ten years earlier. Now we have another one planned for our twentieth anniversary. I cannot say what it is yet. I do not want to ruin the surprise.

I can say this. There are so many moments I’m looking forward to with the love I’ve been lucky enough to have, but none may be more important than now, and then now, and then again now. If you’re tuned in enough to what it means to be truly loved and to truly love someone, you’ll know exactly what I mean. Whether it’s in a library in Utah, an apartment with five plates, or the white cliffs of Santorini, with her, now is the best there is.