Her.

Where do I begin? Concretizing emotion of such magnitude is no easy task, yet surrendering to speechlessness would rob others of sharing the splendor. And so I write…

I first became aware of her existence on one August 2 via Bumble, a popular dating app. Upon matching, her first message to me posed the question “When will we jump?”,  as my profile included my love for skydiving and the subsequent possibility of asking my future mate to join me in jumping out of a plane. I humorously responded with “Next summer at my favorite place in Hawaii, for our 1 year anniversary.”

Fast forward 6 days later, I awoke to excitement and nerves. It was August 8 and time for the meetup. While ironing my shirt, I messaged her again to confirm the plans we’d made several days before. But I received no response. “Hmm”, I thought, “I guess she’s busy getting ready”.

I got dressed and hopped in the car for a 45 minute drive to Panera Bread near her. Slightly concerned about not hearing back, I messaged again once I was closer. And then again when I arrived. And once more to jokingly (yet realistically) accept my fate as a victim of abandonment. Having received no response to any of the messages and a solid 30 minutes having passed since our planned meetup time, I ordered lunch for myself and took a selfie to commemorate my shameful ghosting.

Heading back to the car, I looked at my phone one final time and was finally thrown a bone. It was an apology text and several missed calls. As I reviewed, she called again.

The few minute conversation that followed is best summarized by “I’m so sorry, I can be there in 7 minutes” and my hilariously dignified response of “Well, I’ll leave in 10”. The fates coincided for her to arrive within the declared time limit, and our first date the rest of our lives together had begun.

My first impression of her was fairly simple: sweet, honest, and a smile that rivals the toothpaste actresses. We talked nonstop for nearly 4 hours in between walking, sitting, and enjoying some frozen yogurt outside on a beautiful summer day. We held hands. We hugged. We kissed. We endured the mutual challenge of sitting quietly together for 60 seconds while resisting any urge to break the awkward silence.

As the date concluded due to her work obligations, I drove home with an enormous glow, in disbelief that the torturous hellscape that is the dating app world had finally bore fruit of such beauty, kindness, and personality. Like a young school boy who just received his first kiss, my mind quickly raced towards imagining our potential future together.

Our second date was arranged to occur just 2 days later at my house. After a long day of cleaning and preparing for her arrival, I received a series of text messages expressing her fear of driving in the oncoming thunderstorm. Though initially spited, I agreed to change plans last minute and drove to her house as requested. There, we ate a home-cooked dinner and watched the first few episodes of her favorite American sitcom, Friends.

Having found such a genuine connection, the next 3 weeks proved a bit difficult as she embarked on a long-planned adventure with friends. Eager to reunite, I offered to pick her up from the airport upon return, and we spent the day at my house playing games and having deep conversations about life. By the day’s end, we even somehow opened up to discussing our personal insecurities and confided a trust in one another that few others in our lives had. It was at this point when I began to smell the scent of something special brewing on the horizon.

A few days later, she called me in tears from a terrible family tragedy. It was 10pm, I’d just finished working out, and my salmon dinner was in the oven. Nevertheless, I immediately drove to comfort her. And then once more a few days later.

Date number 6 was the big one, as I asked her to be my girlfriend with a dozen roses and flexed my word skills with a 32 bar handwritten poem. Date number 9 was even bigger after an impromptu meeting with my mom—one which was especially momentous because I’d not spoken to either of my parents in several months due to a family feud.

Spurred to action by the eventful weekend, it was then when I spilled the sacred “I love you” for the first time. Based on our previous conversations, I knew she wasn’t ready to reflect the phrase back yet, but that didn’t matter. I felt it, so I said it. I told her to take all the time that was needed, we kissed, and went on with the rest of our day. A few weeks later, she reciprocated by surprising me with an arrangement of lit candles spelling out the cherished sentiment—also revealing she’d secretly always felt the same way and only withheld such expression out of fear.

While eloquently continuing with a chronological play by play of our relationship could be stretched to present day, I’ll shift towards a wider summary…

We had picnics and snowball fights and romantic bubble baths. We made paintings and built furniture and cared for injured pets. We watched movies, played video games, and took roadtrips. We went hiking, biking, ice skating, boat riding, sight seeing, and thrill seeking. We shared many great meals, many great laughs, and many great sleepless nights. My family became hers, and hers became mine. We were together every weekend and FaceTimed for hours every day we weren’t. We discussed our finances, our beliefs, our regrets, and our goals. We dissected our thoughts on children, societal expectations, longterm commitment, and most importantly, things like what temperature to keep the thermostat on and which articles of clothing to hang dry.

We also had fights—from political head-butting and heavier philosophical conversations to the trivial disagreements that often come with any close relationship.  Though the content of said disputes may varied, the outcome always remained the same: acknowledging our faults, learning from our mistakes, listening to each other’s point of view, opening our minds to change, and becoming an increasingly stronger unified couple.

And this was all before she even moved in. It was before some random old guy pronounced us Mr. and Mrs. in a courthouse on some random Monday afternoon.

In movie-like fashion, we ended up manifesting a full-circle story exactly 1 year from when we first entered each other’s lives: we arrived in Hawaii on August 2 (the anniversary of first matching) and went skydiving on August 8 (the anniversary of our first date), fulfilling the imaginary-turned-real promise that was the first thing we’d ever said to each other. We even finished the final episode of Friends on the anniversary of our second date, which was the day we started watching every episode together.

It was all quite surreal at times. Just like our 14,000 foot jump from the plane—we took a leap, fell fast, and even after touching the ground again, that impossible-to-describe feeling remains.

As a deep thinker and a frequent writer, I’ve long examined and deconstructed the concept of love. It’s a word that carries an unspeakable amount of meanings and is often cheapened through overuse. When I first told my wife I loved her, I made sure to elaborate what exactly such a thing means to me. It means “I deeply care about you. I cherish your presence. Our chemistry is impeccable. Our values align. You’re beautiful, inside and out. I’m grateful you exist. You make me happy. You make my oxytocin and serotonin levels skyrocket. You make me a better me. And I want to reciprocate all of these things for you.”

Despite our different paths in life and our individual differences as human beings, my wife and I have found shared ground and watered it with passion and understanding. Our day of becoming legally bound may have lacked the cliche spectacle and glamor, but the radiance of our relationship shines brighter than that which any superstitious or materialistic tradition could ever generate. There were no shiny rings or fancy dress, no religious context or musical fanfare—just two people professing their love for one another and declaring their commitment to a shared future. To us, that’s all that matters—not to mention the fact that unnecessary wedding ceremonies and matrimonial jewelry certainly seem like a major waste of money.

I find it fascinating to think about the nature of partnership and the human experience. My wife and I were born and raised over 4,000 miles apart on different continents with vastly different upbringings and life experiences, yet our paths crossed and our lives forever merged. Meeting her was an exceptionally dramatic and monumental development for me personally, as I’d lived a very happy and fulfilled timeline before meeting her and never truly dedicated any significant amount of care towards exploring romantic companionship until much later than most. Financial stability, solo dream vacations, creative freedom, and a life based in discipline and independence were all I needed—but thanks to the randomness of circumstance and the miraculous power of technology, I discovered more.

It’s not exactly easy to successfully integrate with another human being so deeply, but that’s all part of the journey. It’s a dance. Learning to navigate in the deepest interpersonal relationship mirrors the patience and dedication that’s required to synchronize with your dance partner’s movements without tripping or stepping on each other’s toes all the time.

It definitely takes hard work and willingness to compromise, but the resulting benefits far outweigh the rest of the equation. At least, they do for me. Perhaps that’s due to the solid foundation we built, the thoroughness and soul-baring transparency that cultivated our fast-moving bond, the maturity we both have, or just the happenstance of who we are. Whatever the case, it’s real.

I am extremely grateful to have found the woman of my dreams. I’m grateful for her empathy and compassion. I’m grateful for her intellect and reason. I’m grateful for her cooking skills, her physical affection, her strength, her honesty, her loyalty, and how she listens to me ramble on about the fact that we’re probably living in some sort of simulation. I’m grateful for the timing of when we met. I’m grateful for her choosing to spend the rest of her life with me rather than returning back home to Brazil as planned. And above all, I’m grateful for her making me a better person.

It happened fast, no human-to-human bond is pure butterflies and roses, and there’s no predicting the future—but it does seem rather difficult to envision a timeline without her now. The laughing, the talking, the drinking, the singing, the traveling, the learning, the veins of frustration, the tears of joy, the intimacy, the emotional comfort—she has given it all to me.

Our pillow talks encompass everything from existential mysteries to tickling and baby voices, from envisioning the next 20 years of our lives to geeking out about the latest Marvel movie. She accepts me entirely for who I am, knows me deeper than anyone else besides myself, and our commitment to growing together has elevated both of us as individuals. She is my wife, my light, my best friend, and will perhaps one day be the mother of my child. The words shed in this testimony pale in comparison to the profundity she’s brought into my life, and I gleam with joy for what’s yet to come.