Ro -
I was with you on your 21st birthday. We went out at midnight for your first legal drink. At the time we were both still living in Boston, had no plans for the future, and were just taking things one step at a time. A typical college romance.
Over the past 12 years we’ve celebrated many of your birthdays together. In Orlando, in Atlantic City - most of them in DC. Over those years we’ve had ups and downs and an engagement and multiple apartments and six pet rats and four cats and two dogs and a parrot and a house. I changed jobs twice and got my masters. You changed careers three times and got your MBA.
Changes were so gradual over these past three years, but when I try to remember back to that 21st birthday they seem tremendous. The places we’ve been and the things we’ve seen - terrible things like deaths and attacks and wars and ruinous presidents and Drive - and great things like births and weddings and hope and accomplishments and the New Kids on the Block in concert with the Backstreet Boys.
Through it all, tho, you were always you. Always compassionate and passionate and trusting and forgiving. Always quick with a joke. Always brightening a room. Always quick to help and insistent on being the better person. Always able to find fun in the most mundane and disappointing situations - we’re getting older together, but everyday you make me feel younger than I am.
So happy birthday, and I look forward to spending many more with you. Although our bones will start to ache and our joints will start to creak and the world will continue to change, we’ll continue to make each other feel the same way we did when you turned 21.
I love you, you’re beautiful, and I’m proud of you, everyday.
