Ten years ago today, I waited nervously in my parents’ kitchen as you pulled up outside in your green Acura Integra.  You got out of the car and you had gotten a haircut and weren’t wearing those awful tennis shoes you wouldn’t take off all through first quarter.  You walked up to the door, all tall, cool and confident.  You were funny and personable with my parents, and then we headed out for the day.  I walked next to you at Santana Row and my hand accidentally brushed yours — you jokingly said, “Jeez, fine you can hold my hand!” and reached out and grabbed mine.  And that was it — I was hooked.  Later that day you tickled me until I shrieked and then kissed me.  I thought my heart would burst I was so full and smitten with you.

A few months later, we were back in the Bay Area for Spring Break and you invited me to spend the day with you in San Francisco.  We met at your parents’ house and headed to BART (my very first time riding it).  You bought my ticket and informed me of the all-important rules like “stand on the right, walk on the left” as we made our way up to the platform.  We boarded the train and sat down next to each other in two of the four seats that face each other.  A few stops in, two kids boarded — one sat across from me, the other across the aisle.  As the train moved forward, the kid across the aisle started taunting the younger kid sitting across from me.  The younger one remained silent, but the kid across the aisle was relentless.  At one point, the older kid got agitated that the younger one wasn’t reacting, and stood up, threatening to hit the boy.  You stood up, put your hand on the older kid’s shoulder, looked him square in the eye and said, “Sit down.”  The kid sneered at you, “Don’t worry about it, man.”  But you stayed right where you were and said again, “Sit. Down.”  The bully sat down and exited the train shortly after.  The younger kid stayed on and started crying quietly.  You said, “Hey, was that your stop?  It’s ok if it was, you just have to get on a train going the other way.”  He mumbled that his stop was next, and exited the train when it came up.

I remember that BART ride so clearly because as soon as you stood up and told that kid to sit down I knew — I knew I loved you.  It was so clear in that moment, and I felt it so surely and squarely.  I had been falling for you for months, but in those few seconds it happened all at once, like falling off a cliff, knowing so certainly that you were it for me.

Over these last ten years together, that feeling hasn’t changed.  Even through the more tumultuous parts of our twenties, the days/months where we were still working on “figuring it out,” and even through the days where my pregnancy hormones get the best of me and I feel overwhelmed and like everything is an unsolved problem, I’ve still always known — you’re the one.

You’re the first person I want to talk to when I’m feeling down, the first person I want to work through a problem with, the first person I want to retell a funny story to, and the only person I want to lay next to at night and wake up with in the morning.

You’re my person.

There’s a lot that has happened over the past ten years.  Sometimes it feels entirely inconceivable that we’ve been together so long (a third of my whole life!)  But then, it also feels like I can’t remember my life without you.  Despite the fact that dating someone throughout the entirety of your twenties comes with a bit of baggage (people are really stupid when they’re 23, 24, etc.  It’s like science or something.) — bad decisions were made, we were immature, you acted out, I would withdraw and then lash out; despite that, there’s also something pretty amazing about the fact that we grew up together.  All those big life moments — we were both there.

I was the first person to hear that you’d gotten an internship at PwC (heck, I was there listening when you got the phone call with the offer).  You knew every law school I got accepted to.  I went with you to buy your very first suit (when the salesman asked, “How does he look?” my reply was, “Like a grown-up.”  We were 21 and 22 at the time.)  We got to graduate from college together.  You were there to pep-talk me through my first semester of law school (God, it was so hard).  I talked you down when working in the “real world” was just… A LOT.  You held my hand as I got my BAR results.  I screamed and jumped up and down every single time you informed me that you’d passed yet another part of the CPA exam.  You were there when my dad got sick (really sick).  I was there when you found out your grandpa had passed.  You were there when mine went not long after.

And you were there when, beer in hand, I got the call that told us we were going to have a whole new adventure together.

I have to say, the past ten years haven’t been easy, but they’ve been the best ten years of my life by far.  I can’t wait to share so many more decades with you.  And there’s certainly no one else I would want to start a family with, and no one else I’d be prouder to call my husband and my kids’ dad.  (Kids — plural!  Getting a little ahead of myself here.)

You’re my favorite person in the whole-wide world, and I can’t wait to tackle parenthood and another 7+ decades with you.  Happy Anniversary, Kace.  I sure do love you.