Happy Birthday Saja

I knew this letter had to be different from all the others. I could write a trillion cliche things about how I love you and all my favorite things about you that you love to hear and every single one would be true, but it wouldn't capture the true essence of us. It wouldn't capture the small, weird, magical texture of what it feels like to be with you. So this letter isn't about generalities, but about the specifics of loving and celebrating the woman of my life.

I want to start with the quiet and little things, the details I commit to memory because they're so cutesy and perfect. When you're focused on a task or reading something, you have those small jerks on your face, which are like physical punctuation marks of your busy, cute mind. And when you feel vulnerable, especially when I point out the beauty you just created, you get shy and hold up your hands, trying to distract me with your fingers. It's such a cute gesture of shyness, and every time you do it I have to fight the urge to double down and say AIIIIII in pure adoration. It's such a lovely attempt to reflect the light, but the light you emit and bring to my life can never be taken away! Also the way you freak out after every sip of alcohol, even though you love to get crunk so bad and I have to take care of you.

Speaking of light, this is the core of your majesticness. The playfulness and the light you emit for me always. Whether you're explaining Hozier lyrics, telling me about the wicked prince book, or explaining facts about Palestine, telling me your family lore (especially your dad), or explaining things about Islam, it always reminds me that your mind is a wonderland of the borderless country that I call my girlfriend's mind.

I've never had someone teach me about partnership and love the way you have. Our journey hasn't been a fairytale from the start, it's been chaotic, a scramble at every step, but I'm so glad it is, because it makes this that much more meaningful to me. I think a lot about those times when I would uber you and we took flixbuses or the time you were at your wits' end running for the trolley, or crashing the scooter, or cooking the DIB pasta with just us and the janitors in the building. The moment we crashed the scooter, it left you with a scarred knee to this day, a permanent souvenir of our moment. You taught me to be more patient with you and more forgiving of others. It taught me that our team isn't always about being perfect, but about being considerate and loving towards you and each other my love.

You're always there for me and believe in me like no one else has. You have the humility and courage to show me when you're wrong and make a mistake to apologize; that makes me love you deeper. And when things happen in your life or your family mistreats you, you come to your real family: me. You bring your greatest vulnerability and pain to me and trust me with that most precious gift you could ever give. It's in those moments I know the depth of my commitment to my little baby and cherish you, my chagaloo.

You have profoundly rewritten the script of my life. My old belief that I would keep bouncing from girl to girl and avoiding commitment you absolutely shattered it. You didn't ask me to change. (Well, maybe you did). You simply existed in my orbit with such direction and clarity that I saw how empty my old path was without you. You have now given me a direction that I know will be there for the rest of my life, and a future that I want to fulfill with every experience. You made me understand that I do everything I want to experience with you.

You are my first real girlfriend. You are the first girl I've introduced to my mother. I'm your first drink. You were my first time and I know, with absolute certainty, that you will be my last, riding me until eternity. My number 1 baby, you are my first and last for everything that will matter.

My love, I look forward to ours, but most importantly, your next chapter. The most beautiful scene I can imagine isn't some grand destination, but the moment you move to San Francisco in the same city with me for once in our lives and the moment we finally close the gap. I look forward to the daily joy of building our lives and careers together and setting up our family. You are not just my present; you're the blueprint for the entire magnificent future I now believe in.

Happy Birthday, my Saja. Thank you for showing me what a life with the perfect person for me looks like, and for choosing to be with me.