00:00 I have a really crazy love story.
00:02 I'm Monica Millington. I'm 33 years old. I'm an American living in Singapore.
00:12 Parents were checking into a hotel in Playa del Carmen, Mexico,
00:18 because I was just 14 at the time, and I saw a really cute boy in the lobby.
00:24 Lo and behold, a few hours later at the pool, after we'd checked in,
00:27 we see the guy at the pool again. So I swam up to him and introduced myself,
00:32 because I was feeling brave. When he introduced himself to me and he said,
00:36 "Hello, I'm Tom," I swooned. And yeah, the rest was history. We fell in love and had
00:42 a week-long romance, but it was pretty instantaneous.
00:44 When we parted ways in the hotel lobby, it was devastating. I mean,
00:53 I was only 14 at the time, but it was the love of my life, and we couldn't say goodbye.
00:57 We couldn't even kiss because our parents were watching.
00:59 So we were keeping in touch a few times a year. We had never FaceTimed each other or seen each
01:03 other on video chat before. So when I picked up that FaceTime call, it was shockingly electric.
01:09 I picked up the phone, and it was like immediately no time had passed. It was like we had spoken
01:14 yesterday. And within about the first 15 minutes, he just came out with, "By the way, I've never
01:18 fallen out of love with you since Mexico," and unexpectedly came out of my mouth. I said,
01:24 "Oh my God, me too. I'm so glad I'm not crazy." And that's when the wheels started turning.
01:28 We're like, "We have to see each other. We have to see each other in real life."
01:31 So I scheduled this big trip, kind of my eat, pray, love moment. And so I was like,
01:42 "I'm going to go out to Asia. Obviously, if we're going to do this and I'm going to be with him,
01:46 I want to see what that part of the world is like, see if it's someplace I'd want to move."
01:49 At the end of that trip, I met up with him in Hong Kong where he was for work. Friday comes,
01:53 and I'm supposed to leave the next day. And he was just like, "I don't want you to leave." And
01:57 I was like, "I don't want to leave either." And then we were like, "We're adults. We can do whatever
02:01 we want. I'm changing my flight." And so I changed my flight for the next week. And we did that on
02:05 repeat for a month. We were sitting there having dinner, and he said to me, he was like, "Well,
02:14 I'm going to marry you one day." And I was like, "Well, yeah." I mean, to me, that wasn't even a
02:19 crazy comment from him. That was a given. I just knew that this was my person. And at the end of
02:24 it, he was just like, "Well, when?" And I was like, "What do you mean, when? When are we going to get
02:28 married?" And he was like, "Yeah, what day do you want to get married?" And so we kind of played
02:33 around with dates and picked a day. And then he's like, "Good, it's done. Deal." And I was like,
02:38 "Wait, are we engaged?" So we found a cute little boutique hotel in Singapore with a gorgeous
02:43 rooftop overlooking the city. And they had an availability in three weeks. So we said, "Okay,
02:48 we're getting married in three weeks." We got to a certain point where we're like, "Okay,
02:55 I think we're ready for a baby." We recently, a year ago, welcomed our baby boy Cruz to the world.
03:02 It's wild seeing the person you love most in the world in this little cute baby hybrid of you two.
03:08 Being with Tom feels like I'm home. And it's always felt that way from the beginning,
03:12 since I was 14, 26, and today.
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