A Love Story 18 Years in the Making

Committed

Jo Piazza

Relationships, Society & Culture

4.6 • 1.7K Ratings

🗓️ 9 July 2025

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Lischele and Derrick met in college back in 2000. They clicked instantly but never dated. Life took them in different directions. They both married other people, started families, and kept in touch only occasionally over the years. Then, in 2018, a birthday message reopened the door. What followed was a long-distance relationship filled with emotional growth, missed signals, and second chances. In this episode, they share how they built something lasting the second time around and what it was about the timing that finally made it work.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Lachal and Derek met in college 24 years ago. He first laid eyes on her during freshman orientation
0:08.1	at Loyola University in Baltimore, and Derek was immediately Smyr. So Sman, in fact, that he walked
0:17.7	her back to her dorm, busted out a full Johnson and Johnson spa kit, and offered to
0:25.0	wash her feet after class. To be fair, she was wearing sandals, and it was dirty and dusty,
0:31.8	but that just didn't do it for her at the time. So Derek and LaShelle didn't date. Not then. They drifted into different
0:42.1	friend groups and they eventually graduated. They ended up marrying other people and started
0:48.4	families. And still Derek kept in touch. A birthday message here, a polite hello at a wedding there,
0:58.1	and then in 2018, almost two decades after they first met,
1:02.1	they were both newly single.
1:04.7	And that year's birthday message turned into dinner.
1:08.4	That dinner turned into long-distance love, and eventually that love turned into a
1:13.7	proposal. Today's episode, like all of recommitted has been, is about what it takes to find
1:20.4	your person a second time. It is about patience, growth, co-parenting, long drives between Wilmington and Jersey, and learning how to
1:30.4	show up as the partner that you could not have been the first time around. It's about being
1:36.7	all in. Even when life doesn't exactly go to plan. This is recommitted. So tell me a little bit about the first time that the two of you got together. How did you meet?
2:08.8	We met on campus, let me say August 2000. We went to attend Loyola University in Baltimore, Maryland, and we came a few days,
2:20.8	or maybe a few days early for a African-American orientation. So that's the first time I laid eyes on her.
2:30.9	And so you guys saw each other on campus. And how did you first start dating?
2:36.3	Man, well, we didn't start officially dating until we circled back in 2018. But I saw her on campus.
2:44.1	I was googly eyes, of course, gorgeous, beautiful. Yeah. So I had to approach her.
2:52.5	Not as I can show what I said, a high start, but I found myself talking to her, you know, there was one day.
3:02.0	I remember we had this freshman experience.
	...

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