one year ago you walked into my life and just never walked out.
thank you for being my best friend, thank you for being the most intelligent person I’ve ever met, thank you for challenging me and fighting me and loving me and traveling the world with me. Thank you for carrying me home drunk from every borough, thank you for always tucking me in and for being the best dog-dad to our little Porkchop, thank you for fighting me over who the real data scientist in our relationship is, and thank you for never letting me address you as anything less than a physicist. thank you for always kissing me awake every single day before you leave to go do big wall street things, thank you for rapping all of D12 seamlessly alongside me, and thank you for making our sleepy little east village apartment home. Thank you for letting your family love me like I’m their own. Thank you for making the words to Carolina less about where I’ve been, and more about the safety and home I have waiting for me in Raleigh, and with you. thank you for calming me down, thank you for giving me the confidence to do my research and to code and to handle all of Pascal’s endless projects. Thank you for helping me get published, and thank you for learning so much about psychopaths that you could probably write my grant proposals for me.
It’s really hard to imagine that only a year ago I was your best friend’s date to your formal, and a year ago I was sandwiched in between both of you in the back of an uber. I can’t believe I wanted you badly enough for what followed, and I can’t believe that a year later, you’re still mine.
A year ago I could barely stand on my own two feet, and here I am, about to begin a doctoral degree in cognitive neuroscience. Nothing I’ve accomplished in the last year, research, publications, honors, my grad school acceptance, or otherwise, would have been possible without you holding my hand and cheering me on and helping me move forward.
I’ve been trying to think of my favorite memory, and even though we’ve done some pretty incredible things, I really can’t pick one. Kissing me under fireworks on the Seine and coked-out Berlin sex clubs were both serious contenders, but in all honesty, it’s everything. every second you spend with me at the manor listening to dcfc and miles Davis and band of horses on vinyl, the way you sing “my beautiful girl” from that stupid city and colour song you know I hate, how you convince me to watch gilmore girls, star wars, and basically every movie ever) guiltily smoking spirits, kappa sig ragers where everyone just feels like family, trips to Philly with Alvin and Nate and the rest of my lab ~bros~, gov ball, candy flipping (aka Kyle trying to kill me!) at Skrillex, when you play hotel California for me for the 12th time on guitar, the stupid nicknames you give me, how you always open doors for me, even how you order (those times you say for the lady make me smile like a fuckin idiot for 20 minutes afterwards) all make me love you more.
I love you baby. Here’s to the rest.
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