I already told you about this one, but I'll write it out because I know you like these thoughts written out in letters. Pretty recently I got sad thinking about congee. I was in the gym, and completely out of the blue I started thinking about how you started eating congee because of me. You had seen that I ate congee with ground turkey and decided that you'd try it too. But then you added spinach and quinoa to your congee. I saw that and after a while I decided to add quinoa to my congee. And again and again we'd trade foods in our routines. You'd start eating kiwi, and I'd start eating kiwi. Or it'd be chia seeds. Or multivitamins. Or butternut squash. Over and over again this would happen.

But I didn't get sad because of the food, of course it's not about the food. It's because this is the first time that I've had a partner take a serious look at me and decided that they want to live parts of their life like mine. You took a part of me, incorporated it, made it your own, and influenced me in turn. We traded influences with each other so much so that each part is as much me as it is you, so thoroughly mixed together that it is neither just me nor you. Our lives hopelessly intertwined.

It's because we respect each other, and because we share values and goals, that this was possible. I told you that I saw a Tiktok of somebody saying that if you love your partner you wouldn't mind becoming more like them. And it's true. It's natural to become more like the people you spend time with. But you have to like the person that they are, so that you'll appreciate seeing them in yourself.

The parts of you that I see in me now are the importance that we put on our connections with people. I used to get huffy when you'd point that out. I'd think, "I didn't just steal those values from you!". But it's like the congee. These values were a central part of you. I took a serious look at you and decided that I wanted to live parts of my life like yours. I could do this because I respect you, and I admire you, and these parts of me are some of the parts of myself that I love most now, because I love you.