Eighteen Years Apart: A Second Chance at First Love

When Joanna and Keeril met as freshmen at Oberlin, the connection was instant—but the romance took its time. After a will-they-won’t-they college friendship turned into a senior-year love story, life pulled them in opposite directions. She moved to London. He stayed in Ohio. What followed were nearly two decades of missed chances, broken hearts, marriages to other people, and long silences punctuated by late-night reunions that never quite stuck. Until one night, 18 years later, they found themselves in the same bar, and this time, the timing was finally right. In this episode, we talk about what it really takes to get a second chance at the kind of love that feels like home. Joanna and Keeril open up about depression, ambition, parenthood, estranged years, unexpected reconnections, and why finding your person again might just be the most romantic thing of all.