How do you define a love that has been 9 years in the making? When Katha first asked me to write “our story”, I had to sit with this question for a while. Love can mean so many things to so many people — it's the coffee made for you in the morning, the shoulder to cry on after a tough day, the quiet moments spent together on a rainy afternoon. In thinking our relationship, I realize that it is the small, seemingly insignificant moments that have come and gone with each day that defines who we are as a couple. Katha and I first met in January 2016 at the University of Pittsburgh. I was a second-semester senior applying to masters programs in preparation for medical school. Katha was a junior also on the pre-med track. We both signed up to be teaching assistants for human physiology lab with one of our favorite professors, Dr. Laurel Roberts, who to this day takes credit for introducing us. It started with a Facebook friend request on her part, which she says was technically the first move. I messaged her shortly after and the conversation flowed easily. Soon, study sessions turned into dates, parties, and regular lunches together. After a month, I asked her to be my girlfriend. We spent the majority of that first year together doing long distance. I moved to Durham, North Carolina for my master’s in June 2016, just 4 months after we started dating. Admittedly, I was nervous about it. Don’t get me wrong, those first few months were probably the best of any relationship I’ve had. But the fear of being responsible for someone else’s feelings at such a transitional point in my life seemed daunting. We spent time talking it over before I left Pittsburgh, and I didn’t realize the importance of that decision at the time. But I do remember driving home with my college roommate and best friend Jesse one night and nonchalantly, half-jokingly saying to him, “I don’t know man, she might be the one.” Over the next few years, our relationship blossomed. Katha got into the same master’s program the following year and joined me in North Carolina. We were with each other through the most pivotal events of our 20’s. Two acceptances to Duke medical school. Becoming pet parents for the first time. Starting jiu jitsu. The death of family members - my sister, her grandfather. Academic triumphs and failures. Graduations. Traveling. Residency match days. Saving lives, and witnessing death. We have been together through it all. And the best part is that there’s still so much left to go. These big moments in our lives have meant a lot to us. But they don’t really tell the whole story of how we arrived here. It was the every day stuff that got us here. Doing little favors for each other with a smile. Making time each week for intentional quality time no matter how busy we were. Trusting each other enough to feel comfortable saying how we feel without fear of retaliation. So as we prepare to officially wed as husband and wife, I find myself at peace. I know that I will be marrying someone who knows me, deeply and truly. And at the same time I trust that I fully know and see her. That sense of peace and security is something we have worked to cultivate over the years, but on some level has always been there from the start.