It's always fun to reverse engineer the series of increasingly unlikely events that led to the two of us meeting. Being a Welcome Week leader at the U of M was a last minute decision for me in order to rack up some extra volunteer hours to pad out my graduate school application. Our training group was also the 'overflow' group, and Caitlin was added to it at the last possible minute. So many small variables could have led us to having been separated into different rooms, never to have ever met. Meeting Caitlin and her initial advances was a little bit intimidating. I had never dated a girl who was the same height, or dare I say.... TALLER than me. Her conversational style is also very direct. This basically took our relationship from 0-100 in the course of just a few days. I soon came to realize that she was the perfect combination of form and function. A beautiful, gregarious and energetic woman, who was driven and highly intelligent in the field of science and medicine. I always anticipated this long and convoluted journey to finding my future partner, but here she was, dropped directly in front of me. It almost seemed like it was too easy, but she matched almost every objective and subjective desire. Loving her was easy, learning from her was insightful, and teaching her new things was genuine. I quickly learned that we were both in the right place to help each other grow and succeed. Perfect synergy. She is definitely what grounds me in reality. I may bring a little more frivolity, while she rightfully brings the logic. She is very much Spock from Star Trek. In our last eight years we have been through some tough times, but never has it been because of tension between us. Conflict has been non-existent because we've braced challenges head-on together as a team. I'm confident that our time together has been a rock solid foundation to build a marriage off of. I look back on our time together with nothing but happiness in our love and pride in our mutual success.