One year of Bliss

As of 1 week ago, I have been dating the same person for 1 year. An entire year. That's a really long time for me to hold onto a relationship, let alone one that's healthy for me.

And I love him. More than I've loved anyone. I find this combination of love and time absolutely incredible.

Our anniversary landed on last Tuesday, but we celebrated on Monday. We made a blanket fort and watched Iron Man 2 and it was a lot of fun. I gave him a photoshop collage of a couple of pictures of us and all these different languages that all say 'I love you.' I took them from the 115 facebook posts he put on my wall. He really did post 'I love you' on my wall in 115 different languages. He's ridiculous like that. He gave me a shirt with a picture of us on it, which he's currently adding to. He also gave me underwear. I know what you're thinking, that he probably gave me some lacy little thong from Victoria Secret. You'd be wrong. He gave me pink cotton panties that say "The Beaver State" on the front with a picture of a beaver, and "I <3 Oregon" on the back. They're a good luck charm to get into Oregon State, or as Tammy Jo says "that Beaver school."

Right? My boyfriend is ridiculous. <3

It didn't really hit me until now how long a year is. Before it was just like "oh yeah, we've been dating a year. Whatever. It's a measurement of time." I guess maybe that's because this year has gone by so quickly. It seems like just yesterday I was still a junior, with a year left of high school. Now I'm proud of it. I have been dating Colin Sanders for an entire year. The next step? To stay this way for the rest of our lives.

My Perfect Little Nerd

I love my boyfriend. He makes me so very happy. I mean, how many people do you know are going to lie to you through their teeth, talk to your friends behind your back, and misuse your trust so they can surprise you the next day by being at your house before you get home from school?

He did that before we took the photo you see above. He lost practically all of his dignity and he was excited to do it. He was proud to put on a bra and dress for me, so we could take pictures together. He was ecstatic and couldn't wait until they were on facebook, so he could show his friends and family how cute we were. I mean, how sweet is that?

I literally cannot be sad when he's in my head. I had a math test today, one that I was in no way prepared for. While I racked my brain for the formula used to find the missing side of a vector, my mind wandered a little. I was wondering what my dear sweet boyfriend was doing, and if he was in precalc at that time, suffering as I was. I realized the oddest thing. My lips were spread out more and my cheeks had contracted. I was smiling where seconds before my life was abysmal. That's what he does to me, he makes me smile.

This last weekend we were walking on his side of town, in SE Portland, and we saw the oddest tree. It was absolutely covered in colorful strands of yarn. Whoever had done it had thrown spools of the stuff up in the air, over the branches, ran around the tree, letting it unravel and cover the trunk. It was crazy. I couldn't think of any explanation for it and I was so curious as to why anyone would do such a thing. So he gave me an explanation. He told me that the people in the house behind the tree were "chosen ones." They had to make a sacrifice to the gnome that ruled over Ladd's Addition (the neighborhood we were in at the time). The sacrifices weren't anything like ritualistic killings of goats or cats or anything like that. They were decorations. Every question I asked after that, he had an answer for, no matter how ridiculous or sensible. "what's the gnome's name?" "Ladd, of course." "Does he realize how small Ladd's Addition is?" "Well gnomes are much smaller than people. He's about a fourth your size, so for every step you take, he has to take four. So Ladd's Addition is four times as big in his perspective." It went on and on and I kept expecting him to laugh at me and say that's enough and we'd go home. But he didn't. He kept it all up, even when I took us totally off of our path to hunt for the gnome briefly. He even let me talk to a cat to find out that Ladd was on vacation. It was great. We're going gnome-hunting this summer.

I love my boyfriend. He's my sweet, confident, ridiculous, trustworthy, silly, encouraging, sexy, amazing, pretty, perfect, indescribable, little, Nerd. Everyone should have one.