Dear Indira,
this one is yours.

My beautiful Indu,

Happy birthday to the person who makes my life feel more like itself.

This is your first birthday with my ring on your finger, and my whole life ahead of us, and I keep catching myself smiling at the thought that I get to call you my fiancée.

I arrived too late to be your first love... but maybe i arrived just in time to become the love of your life... I have loved you in so many seasons already, but loving you with forever in our plans feels like a new kind of happiness.

I hope this next year brings you the kind of happiness that stays after the candles are gone—the quiet, certain kind that lives in your chest and reminds you that you are loved beyond measure.

Thank you for your softness, your strength, your laugh, and all the tiny ways you make a day better without even trying. I still get to call you my girlfriend, my fiancée, and my favourite person in the same lifetime. I don’t think I’ll ever stop feeling lucky about that.

When I look at the little girl in the first photo and then at the woman I am going to marry, I feel grateful for every road that brought you to me. Here’s to every place we haven’t seen, every meal we haven’t shared, and every ordinary Tuesday that will become a memory because it happened with you.

I love you, endlessly.
Your almost-husband ♥