I got engaged in the redwoods!

But not to my current partner. As much as it sometimes feels weird to talk about my past self in that past relationship, it also feels important.

Here’s fun (not fun) personal tidbit for you: The last time I was in the redwoods, I got engaged!

But not to my current partner.

It was the summer of 2017, and I had just turned 20, and my ex and I went on a road trip before I started my final year of college. When he got down on one knee in a grove of ancient trees, the first thing I felt was a jolt of sour disappointment (though I wouldn’t admit that aloud until many months later).

There were dozens of signs I ignored and justified and pretended not to see, but one that sticks out, given how my life has progressed, is this: My ex was uncomfortable with how much I loved my family’s husky. “Go cry to Snort about it,” he once texted when I was sick and reached out for support. “It seems like you care about her the most anyway.”

I can’t believe I was ever with—let alone engaged to be married to—someone like that. I especially can’t believe it when I look at the ones I am with now.

Do you see what I see in this picture? Look closely: Sean actively sharing his decaf latte with Scout. Finding it adorable to invite her up next to him. Calling her “sweetheart” and “lover pup” and “Scooter-inho”.

Never ever even considering turning my love for this dog into an argument between us humans.

I didn’t know what partnership could actually look like—how it could sit in my stomach as the opposite of the heavy pit I’d come to know—and as much as it sometimes feels weird to talk about my past self in that past relationship, it also feels important.

Because maybe she’s still out there, somewhere, not knowing.

And maybe she could stumble upon these words and see.