Meet Ryan.

Well, it’s probably well past due time for this post.

Meet Ryan!

He’s my boyfriend, and — my soon-to-be roommate.

How exciting.

If you follow me over on Twitter or are privileged enough to be a trustworthy member of the Insta close friends list, Ryan’s face is not new to you.

You’ve seen it over and over and over again. Since *looks at calendar* …January.

Yeah, this post is well overdue.

Ryan and I first met about six months ago. We both work together on the Coconino National Forest — I work in the main office doing public affairs and Ryan is on one of the forest’s Hotshot (wildland firefighting) crews. He asked me out for drinks at his favorite bar (Hops on Birch), which actually happened to be my favorite bar.

I’m actually not sure how we never ran into each other at that bar.

Because Ryan has a seasonal job, prior to COVID he would spend his off seasons backpacking and traveling and whatnot, but, due to COVID, he decided to stay local for the winter. His parents own a cabin in Parks, which is about 45 minutes outside of Flagstaff, and he’d been staying there during this off season.

We clicked right away, thanks in part to a lot of mutual interests: traveling, hiking, craft beer, a shared deep desire to own a dog but a shared tendency to gravitate toward hectic jobs and unstable living situations.

(I’ve written it before… but that’s actually how we ended up with Yukon.)

Our first date lasted a VERY long time, and our second date — the next week — was even longer. I think it was about 24 hours long. We spent an entire day watching SNL skits and ordered Thai takeout for lunch.

After those 24 hours, he left… and then ended up coming back over a few hours later. Is that still the second date? Or is that a third date at this point?

At this point he basically moved in.

“Hey, I have some expensive ski stuff in my truck… I don’t want anyone to break in. Do you mind if I just kind of bring it inside for the time being?”

…OK Ryan.

He probably would have stayed longer, but my friend Sara was coming over later that day so we could spend our weekend up in Moab.

He did end up coming out to meet us at a brewery, though, when before we left for our trip! So that was a weird third (fourth?) date.

I like to joke about how it started with the skis, but then suddenly, more and more of his stuff just started accumulating in my apartment.

At that point he was over basically every single night. The literal day after Sara left, he was back at my apartment baking cookies with me.

And that was that!

One week later he was filing his taxes at my kitchen table, the next week he was helping me fold my laundry and the week after that he was mending his clothes in my living room.

He brought Yukon “home” less than two months later.

There are a few jokes that a lot of the Hotshots have about the seasonal employment thing, and one of them is basically finding a Tinder date with an apartment to mooch off of during the off-season.

I give Ryan SO much shit for doing that.

We were both a little slow to commit to something official even though it was clear that we really liked each other. I think the hesitation was, in part, because of Ryan’s line of work and how difficult it makes it to maintain a relationship.

We spent the next few months seeing each other as much as possible. Ryan (also a licensed EMT) took a pre-fire-season FEMA assignment administering COVID vaccinations down in Prescott and Cottonwood, so I went to stay down in his government-comped hotels with him for a few days.

Then, on his two days off between 14-day assignments, he came right back “home” to my apartment.

We even celebrated Ryan’s birthday together.

*Black Forest cherry cake, made by yours truly.*

We’d met most of each others friends at this point too. Ryan would meet every single one of my friends that was visiting from out of town (if he wasn’t out on a fire assignment) and I had crashed way too many of his crew’s bar nights.

*A break between fire assignments means a summer bar night out at Annex.*

But, when we started talking about long-term plans for Yukon and my apartment lease’s expiration, Ryan brought up moving in together and I agreed… but told him he had to stop introducing me as his “friend,” if that was the case.

After that talk, we started looking for apartments together! We submitted an application for a new apartment yesterday, so if it’s accepted, we’ll be signing a lease for a beautiful new place located closer to downtown Flagstaff.

So, that’s Ryan! I’m excited that I can finally publicly introduce him to everyone outside of Insta close friends now.

We don’t get to see each other too much right now because it’s mid-fire season and Ryan is gone most of the time – he does a 14-day assignment, then two days off, then a 14-day assignment, then two days off, etc., for about six months of the year — but the times I do get to see him are well worth waiting for.