In chaos theory, the Butterfly Effect is explained as the sensitive dependence on initial conditions in which a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state. More commonly, the Butterfly Effect is explained as how a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil, which, through a chain of complex interactions, might eventually influence whether a tornado forms in Texas.

Our story starts with a global pandemic, a run, and the boy next door. For those of you who may or may not know, Spencer and I have known of each other since middle school. Back in those days Spencer and I lived relatively separate lives made up of many complex interactions and choices. Different friend groups, different classes, different colleges, different paths. Until 2020.

June, 2020. A global pandemic has shut down the world for months at this point and ruined a lot of plans. I had been running around my neighborhood a lot that summer, because what else was there to do? On this particular day in June I ran by my neighbor's house (shout out Nick Tilson) and his girlfriend at the time was throwing him a surprise birthday party with all of his friends from home, Spencer being one of those friends. I stopped my run to say hello and that's when I first noticed him and he first noticed me.

The night goes on, I get invited over to join the party, games are played, conversations are had, and through the course of one game in particular Spencer and I hit it off. During this game he got the opportunity to ask me a question and he chose to ask me about Italy. He chose to ask me about Italy because he knew I had just been there studying abroad and he had also traveled to Italy with his football team. Later in our relationship I would find out that the question was thought out and deliberate because he had been trying to find a way to start a conversation with me all night. Well it worked, and once we started talking we never stopped. A person sitting in between us moved so that we could keep having our conversation without talking over them, eventually the basement cleared out and we were the only two left downstairs still talking. We both have said that that was the easiest conversation either one of us had ever had and to this day that is one of things we both value most about our relationship, how easy it is to talk to each other. That was the first night, and I remember going home that night and thinking to myself that I had just met someone really special. The funniest thing about that moment is that that special person had been right there in front of me for most of my life.

A sensitive dependence on initial conditions in which a small change can result in large differences later. Two separate lives, two different paths crossed again and now joined forever. But what if a global pandemic never shut down the world? What if I went on a run an hour earlier? What if Spencer never went to Italy? Or even further back what if my parents bought my neighbor's house instead of ours and they never moved into our neighborhood? Or maybe none of it would have mattered because somewhere a butterfly flapped it's wings and set off a chain of complex interactions that led to that day in June, which led us to forever.

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