I remember meeting you and initially having no interest in getting to know anything beyond your name. We were acquaintances at best. We were put together by mutual friends, but the universe had so much more planned for us. You sat in front of me in our eleventh-grade music appreciation class and it set off a chain reaction neither of us was expecting. We laughed and talked and you quickly became my best friend.

You have been known to fall in love with your eyes wide and your arms open and that is one of many things I have grown to admire about you. I am much more tentative, slowly but surely checking two to three times an hour if I am sure I want to make such a commitment considering the pain that may accompany it. Yet, you quickly had me stumbling and tripping into a love with you that, even after two years together, seems too good to be true. You are there for me each and every day to help dust myself off after hitting rock bottom face first, and you have shown me the light I aspire to be in others lives. You showcase your kindness and sincerity in everything you do, not simply in the words you tell me.

The way that you hold me, so gently and comforting, taught me that love is not synonymous with pain as many seem to believe. Love is not confusion and screaming matches. Love is patient. Comfort. Effort. Even after two years together, the love you have shown me has never waned, simply grown and spotlighted the wonderful man that God sent to cross my path.

I love you with each late night phone call until your snoring forces me to hang up. I love you with each pizza fight that I am hellbent on having. I love you and I can't wait to spend the rest of my life gushing about how lovely you are. You have taught me so much in the time we have been together, lessons that I will carry into each relationship that I am meant to have; and, I know you'll be there with me, pinkies linked together as we walk.