Anyone who knows me understands that I like to plan. At the age of 18, I knew I would graduate with my PhD at 26 and get married that same year. I will get married at 26, but it looks nothing like I planned.

Even though I knew Will was one of the strangest people in our dorm, he was always easy to be around. His huge smile is infectious and warm. He is one of those people that doesn’t have to try to be likeable, he is so good at being good. I never thought I would end up with someone so wonderful. After getting to know him a little bit my first year of college, he became a friend, then a confidante and then I knew there was more.

Fast forward a few months and I am beside myself thinking that Will doesn’t want to have a serious relationship. I tearfully confronted him and during my diatribe, Will (without losing eye contact) reaches down and grabs a burger off of the floorboard of my car, brings it to his mouth and proceeds to eat an entire junior bacon cheeseburger. He didn’t want it to get cold, he said. He had already been planning to ask me to be his girlfriend, he was just waiting for the right time. Even though I was scared of my feelings for the guy with the cheeseburger, I agreed that night to take a chance on him (and him on me).

The next five years flew by. It is no secret that college was a rough time for me and there is not a doubt in my mind that I couldn’t have done it without Will’s unwavering support. It did not take me long to fall very madly in love with the man who never left my side during my worst days and who stood proudly by during my best.

Very little turned out how I planned it. Will is not the UNC basketball player I thought I would be marrying (has anyone seen him try to play?!) Although life has a way of dismantling all of your plans, it also has a way of providing the sweetest moments of joy. Every time Will leaves a note in my lunch or brews me coffee in bed, I am reminded that we often find the greatest joy where we least expected it. Life will not cease to surprise me and ruin all of my plans, but I know that when it inevitably does, Will will be there, armed with a cheeseburger, a smile, and unconditional love.

It was a night in late fall at Carolina, and I went on a quiet stroll as I always did. Down the stairs of 9th floor west, down out onto Columbia, and onto the Upper Quad. Down among the flowers and hulking menace of Phillips and up onto the steps of South building. There sat two benches. overlooking the lower quad and the hulking Wilson library. My heart was filled with excitement, that quiet night, at the oldest university, where my father, and his father before had learned about life, and become men. This where presidents had learned, nobel prizes had been won, and where the acetylene that built America was invented. But that night, that night was for me, for my story.


I've always been fascinated by the interplay between New and Old. Between beginnings, and the things that stay the same. I knew that night was a beginning, a very important beginning, a beginning that would last. That night, I realized that I loved Abby.




Abby Ward has been there, she always has. She's kind, driven, and brilliant in a way few individuals are, but of course she is, or you wouldn't be here today reading this.




My love for Abby is beyond that which a mere mortal like me can put to paper, and so I, no Shelley, Keats or Byron, won't bore you with cliches or platitudes. Every day we chose each other, and every day we begin anew, with the knowledge that our relationship is old and solid, but built upon mutual trust, and respect that runs deep like roots through our lives.




As the master Epictetus said: "No great thing is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig, I answer you that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen." We have blossomed, and will continue to, because we continue to build our reality anew, every single day.




PS: *it was a triple cheeseburger, not a JBC!