Reb Zee, who officiated our wedding, asked us a few months ago to email her with how/when/why we knew we loved each other. She told us these emails were confidential, and that we couldn’t see what the other one wrote about us.

We saved the emails and showed them to each other afterward. This is Suzie’s email about me.

 

 

JoJo is my favorite subject… I hardly know where to start.

Three years ago this summer, I was invited to a keshet potluck shabbat by some friends. When I opened the door to the apt, JoJo was the first person I saw. Sitting there, grinning hugely – I sat down oposite her and chatted with her. She was the first new person I really met in Boston. This was two days before starting Rabbinical school.

I’d like to say it was love at first sight, but it was probably more like like at third, or fourth sight – after running into her at a few potlucks I was totally hooked. I couldn’t get her out of my head. She just made me so very nervous. Bu I could never direct my attention from her when she was around, and I couldn’t stop myself from contacting her often when we were apart.

I’ve never been so utterly drawn to another person. From the beginning, it was like talking to my long lost soul – everything I said was met with understanding and compassion. Everything she said was just so familiar to me. She was and is, just so familiar to me.

And it was not because we had the same background, family or interests – in many ways we are from different worlds.

But she just felt so right. I can’t really explain it without sounding hopelessly cheesy, but even when she said no, that she wasn’t ready, that she couldn’t be with me, I knew that she was it for me. I just knew, so deep in my gut. I knew I loved her and I never doubted she loved me. It was just foundational. In my first year of rabbinical school I knew nothing at all – I had never felt so ignorant in my life, but I knew I loved her and that she was different.

I’d rather if our first dramatic year was not a focus the day of the wedding, or really mentioned at all. It is still hard for me to go back to that place where I wasn’t sure if she would ever say “yes.” But that sense of “oh God, this is right and I don’t know why,” still stays with me. It is the foundation of my gratitude, and for the loving, exuberant yet careful love we have today and I wouldn’t change that first year for anything.

Why was she the one? JoJo is the only one who matches me point for point in every way that matters, and challenges me, compliments me in all the ways I need to be challenged.

When we first met and we started talking all the time i was afraid i would overwhelm her – I had done it before. Too much passion, too many emails, too much. But we are both too much. We love hard. We communicate intensely. We don’t pull punches but we don’t hold anything back. We are never afraid to say “what,” when a dark look crosses the others face, and we are never afraid of anything the other person has for us.

I’ve never met someone who could match me. In passion, in artistic creativity, in intellect, in spirituality and love for community. JoJo likes the metaphor of a binary star – no one revolves around the other, but perfect matches in power and intensity. From the moment she told me that metaphor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_star) I knew right away that I was her binary star, and everything just made so much sense.

But JoJo truly challenges me. She is brilliant, perceptive, sensitive, and kind – she makes me a better person everyday. But also a stronger person, a person who is capable of change, capable of knowing when I am wrong, capable of growth.

She is so full of joy and life – she takes such pride in our home, really prioritizing relationships with our roommates. She makes our space so beautiful.

Rebzee, I don’t even know what to say but to gush – she is just the most interesting, passionate person I have ever known! I come home from a long day of work to find her making beautiful, frilly aprons. She is creating the most beautiful ketubah/shtar I have ever seen. She is ALWAYS thinking about other people – how to make people comfortable, how to connect better and more deeply with our community. I am so proud of her, I look up to her. She teaches me everyday what it means to live in community, to love, to be compassionate and giving.

And she’s also so free – so wild. We are both rebels in many ways, carving out our own path instead of following the beaten path. But even more than me, she is just so beautifully free. This song always reminds me of her : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pJksfSUDJ4 (she’s the singer’s perspective)

But even while being so free, she is so solid. So reliable, trustworthy, all ways there for me and anyone who needs her. I love how deeply she loves her sister. How she cares for and about her. I know she will make the best parent ever.

I am so happy, rebzee. I’ve never been so happy. She is my joy, she is my life. Every morning as I leave I tell her that I will miss her all day – and its true. And when I come home, she is just so present. She teaches me how to be present. How to put the day down. How to appreciate every moment. She is my greatest chevrutah, always has been. I know that where ever we go, whatever we do, our life will be so filled with love and magic and Judaism and people. I trust her so fully. I can hardly believe this is my life.

And I am committed to her. And I know she is committed to me. Even in the hard times, we are brave, we are strong. Our kavannah is to love hard, to love fully, to love passionately, and to push eachother to be our best for the world and the best we can be for each other.

I can go on forever, but I’ll stop here. I simply adore her – the best person I have ever met.

thank you for being at the center of our wedding.

I love you so much.

can’t wait to see you,

love, Suzie

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