Dear Michael,

Happy birthday! To celebrate, let’s take a stroll down memory lane. And I’ll start by saying something you might not expect to hear.

When I first met you, you were very off-putting.

Not the typical way to start a declaration of love, but hey, our ability to be honest with each other is one of the best parts about our relationship.

We met at Suburban Tap by my house towards the end of 2015. I was a bright-eyed, smiling girl ready to meet somebody new. And you? You were a steely-eyed stranger covered in tattoos and scowling. You were a person of few words. I was a chatterbox who wouldn’t shut up.

Not the most likely of friendships.

But under the coldness and the tattoos, I saw something else. I had a hunch. My hunch was that you were more than you appeared, and more than you would let on. But to see who you really were, I had to earn your trust. And I decided you were worth the effort. I decided I’d show you that I could be trusted. Because I wanted friends. And against all logic, I wanted you as a friend. You, this grumpy stranger in a bar.

During the next year, you slowly but surely became one of the most important people in my life. All the months of hikes in nature, the trips to the mall, the drinks at our favorite bar, the late-night walk and talks, the crying phone calls when I was having problems in my relationship (which was a lot). You became not just a friend, but my best friend.

And during this time, I discovered that under your cold exterior, you were somebody that was kind, giving, and maybe even – gasp! – sensitive. You cared more than you let on, you were more sensitive than you’d ever let anybody know, and under that "tough guy" attitude, there was a boy who danced around the kitchen and sang (horribly) while he baked bread. My hunch about you from the very beginning was correct.

Nothing made this more apparent than the months you spent helping me heal after the worst breakup of my life. I sat in your car and cried. Like, ugly crying. Makeup and snot falling down my face. I bemoaned to you about how I was broken, and I would never be the same person again. You told me to stop feeling sorry for myself, to not let fear run my life, and assured me that I was far too special to let some stupid boy change me into something I wasn’t.

And you presented me with a necklace. It was called a mermaid’s tear necklace, and it glowed in the dark. I was so overcome with emotion in that moment, and all I could think was how happy I was to have a friend like you in my life. I would lay in my bed at night, gazing down at the necklace, imagining that the soft glow was the warm glow of your friendship, keeping me safe during one of the darkest times of my life.

And then, something else happened. Something I never thought could have happened. You became more than my best friend, and I fell in love with you.

And, lucky for me, you were in love with me too. You had been all along.

And the rest, as you know, is history.

We had our fair share of critics when we first started dating. And we had a fair bit of bumps in the road as we struggled to learn about each other in that way. It was difficult. It was confusing. It was even painful. And if you were anybody else, I might have decided it wasn’t worth it. But you weren’t just anybody else. You were you.

You are a person who is worth it in every single way. And every day, you show me how much you’re worth it.

You do things for me without asking that I've had to beg everybody else for. You open the car door for me. You send me flowers at work and bring me lunch at work. You patiently listen to me when I am upset and never try to gaslight my feelings. You text me good morning every morning and text me to drive safe every morning when I drive to work. You take the initiative to plan dates for us. You like spending time with my parents and even helped us set up our wireless printer and spent a whole day baking Challah with my mom. You're even taking me to Disney World, my favorite place on the planet, for Valentine's Day.

But I'm not in love with the things you do for me (although they are nice). I am in love with you for who you are.

Your beautiful mind takes me places I’ve never been before. I could talk to you for hours and hours and never get bored. Your cutting sarcasm and jokes – though they sometimes miss the mark – make me laugh harder than I ever have. You make me smile so much and so hard that my cheeks hurt at the end of the day. Your resilience and ambition, despite all the horrible things that life has thrown at you, inspires me every day to be a stronger person. Your gentle nature balances out my feisty temper and motivates me to be a more calm and patient person.

You help me grow as a person. You challenge me and call me out on my crap. You present me with different ways of thinking. You support my dreams and ambitions and encourage me to work hard and not get complacent. You tell me what I need to hear, not what I want to hear. You see me for who I am on a deeper level, not just for what I say and do.

You are my constant calm, the one person who keeps me grounded, and the person I can count on no matter what. There's nobody I'd rather stumble through life with than you.

You deserve to be celebrated daily, not just once a year. And I can promise you that as long as we are together, I will never forget to celebrate you. With somebody as amazing as you, how could I?

Love you to the moon and back,

Anna