B + L • 06.12.25

Welcome to ours.

A lil somethin for when you need a reminder of our love, my Jaan. Not just the perfect parts — all of it. The first words, the nerves, the distance, the laughter, the hard conversations, and every time we kept choosing each other.

a letter for you

My love,

Sometimes I think about how insane it is that an entire world can begin with something so small. A message. A joke. Two people who had no idea how important they were about to become to each other. And then somehow, little by little, you became the person I wanted to tell everything to.

I don't only love the big memories. I love the tiny ones that nobody else would understand. I love the nervousness before we knew exactly what we were. I love that we learned how to reassure each other instead of running from the difficult conversations. I love that even when miles were between us, you still felt like the closest person in my life.

I remember looking at you in person and realizing there was no screen between us anymore. I remember your hand in mine, the nights I didn't want to end, and the feeling of knowing I would eventually have to get on a plane and leave. That night before the airport hurt because for the first time distance wasn't just a number — it was having you right there and knowing I couldn't stay.

Then came all the pieces of a life: birthdays, our little pink bear becoming our “first child,” ridiculous jokes, surprises, Ramadan mornings, being sick and having you take care of me even when you had class, anniversaries, arguments we chose to talk through, and thousands of ordinary seconds that somehow became precious because they were ours.

I don't need us to be a perfect love story. I want ours — the one where we grow, listen, forgive, laugh too hard, miss each other like crazy, and still come back to the same truth: I choose you. Again and again.

So whenever your mind gets loud, whenever the distance feels heavier, or whenever you just need proof that you are loved, come back here. Every picture is a little piece of us saying the same thing: you are my Jaan, my best friend, my home, and the future I keep finding myself dreaming about.

Forever yours,
Baha

the story of us

The moments that made us.

The first conversation

Before “us” even had a name.

It started with something so stupidly small: me swiping up on your note about Shaq’s toes. No grand introduction, no movie-perfect opening — just one little reply that neither of us could have known would change the shape of our lives. I look back at that first conversation now and wish I could reach through time and tell us both: pay attention. This person is going to matter. A lot.

On 05.22.25, you were still just someone on the other side of my screen. But somewhere inside those first messages, curiosity became comfort. I started wanting another reply, another conversation, another reason to keep you there a little longer. The beginning of us did not announce itself. It quietly happened while we were laughing.

♪ the beginning of our soundtrack

When we started opening our hearts

I wanted you to know love could feel safe.

By 05.25.25, our conversations were no longer just jokes. We started talking about relationships, fears, expectations, and the things that had taught us to protect our hearts. I remember wanting you to understand that I was actually listening — not waiting for my turn to speak, not trying to rush you into trusting me.

I wanted to learn what made you feel safe, what made you overthink, what reassurance meant to you, and how I could love you in a way you could actually feel. Looking back, this was one of the first times I realized I did not only want your attention. I wanted the responsibility of knowing your heart and treating it gently.

♪ for the part where trust began

Learning each other

Love isn't never struggling. It's staying soft through it.

Then came 07.10.25 — our first argument. The first reminder that loving somebody does not magically make two people understand each other perfectly. We hurt, got frustrated, misunderstood, explained, apologized, and learned.

Every argument after that taught me something too: love is not proven by never getting upset. It is proven in what we do after. In choosing not to turn each other into enemies. In learning how the other person needs to be heard. In coming back when pride would be easier. I do not love you because we never struggle. I love that even through the struggle, I still recognize you as my person.

Our first days together in person

I could feel your heart racing from here.

10.10.25. I had crossed the country for a person I had known through a screen, and suddenly you were standing in front of me. I remember the nerves — that look on your face, my heart pacing, both of us trying to act normal while something we had imagined for months was finally real.

Then came the tiny things I will never call tiny again: walking around with your friends and holding your hand for the first time, going to IniBurger, looking over and realizing I did not have to imagine what it would feel like to sit beside you anymore. Your hand was actually in mine. Your laugh was not coming through a speaker. I could look at you and you were there.

That trip answered a question I did not know I was still carrying. What we had through a phone did not disappear in person. It became more real.

10.13.25 • the night before I left

I would've frozen time if I could.

This was the night before I had to leave. You kept asking me to stay, and if loving you could have changed a flight, I would have never gotten on that plane. I remember how cruel time suddenly felt. We had spent months wishing for the chance to simply be in the same room, and now every minute was counting down toward me having to walk away from it.

The next day, at the airport, we cried together for the first time because I had to leave. Before October, 2,763 miles was geography. After I held you, it became the distance between where I was and where I wanted to be. Leaving hurt, but it also gave me certainty: I was not wondering anymore whether I would cross the country for you again. I already knew I would.

This picture is not really goodbye to me. It is proof that for the first time, we had something that hurt to leave behind.

10.31.25 • your birthday

And then we had our “first child.”

Your first birthday with me. I could not be standing beside you for every second of it, but I still got to watch pieces of your day through a screen and tell you Happy Birthday as the person who loved you. October 31 stopped being just a date — it became the day the person I love came into this world.

And somewhere in all of that, the pink bear became our ‘first child.’ It is ridiculous, adorable, and completely ours. That is one of my favorite things about loving you: somewhere between serious conversations and huge promises, we created a whole little language that only makes complete sense to us.

A room full of love

I wanted you surrounded by what I feel for you.

I came back to you, and this time I got to spend Valentine’s Day with the one person I actually wanted Valentine’s Day to mean something with. I wanted you to walk into that room and physically see love everywhere — petals, gifts, red and pink, every little detail saying what I could never fit into one sentence.

But the room was never the gift. You were. My favorite part was knowing I was finally there to love you in person again. After the airport, after the missing you, after counting the distance, I got another beginning with you. And somehow our first Valentine’s Day became the best one of my life so far simply because the person beside me was you.

Our first Ramadan together

Sleepy, early, and somehow still a memory I treasure.

We woke up hella early and went to IHOP with Sameer and Dorian before the sun came up, getting ready to begin our first Ramadan together. At the time it was just us being tired, eating, laughing, and starting a fast. I did not know I would someday look back at that table and understand how sacred an ordinary morning can become.

We prayed Fajr together for the first time. We made stupid memories too — wrapping toilet paper around Sameer’s car in the middle of the night and ending up at Denny’s. Then life changed, and we experienced real grief together when we lost our friend. Suddenly memories that had once just made us laugh became things we wanted to hold onto.

That part of our story taught me that love is not only being beside somebody when life is romantic. Sometimes it is praying beside them. Sometimes it is laughing with the people you love. Sometimes it is sitting together in a kind of sadness neither person knows how to fix and simply refusing to let the other carry it alone.

When I was sick

You took care of me anyway.

04.22.26. I got severely sick in front of you, and there was nothing romantic or polished about it. You had class. You had responsibilities and somewhere you were supposed to be. Still, you made sure I was okay. You stayed, checked on me, took care of me, and made me feel like I mattered even when I was probably the least fun version of myself to be around.

I think about that because flowers and dates are easy to recognize as love. This was quieter. This was love with somewhere else to be, choosing to stay a little longer. Love remembering to check again. Love taking care of somebody when there is nothing glamorous to receive in return.

You did not just tell me you loved me that day. You showed me what being cared for by you feels like. And I remember it.

06.12.26 • one year

365 days of choosing you.

One year before this, I asked you to be mine without knowing everything that one yes would contain. I did not know about the flights, airport tears, birthdays, our first Ramadan, the prayers, the grief, the sickness, the surprises, the arguments, the apologies, or all the ordinary nights that would eventually feel like home.

When I wrote you that anniversary message, I meant every word. But I was not only celebrating 365 days behind us. I was celebrating the fact that after meeting every version of us that first year created, I still looked at you and wanted another 365. And another. And another.

A year did not make me feel finished loving you. It made me realize how much life I still want to experience beside you.

♪ one year, and nowhere near finished

07.04.26 • 2,763 miles apart

Our kind of dependence.

We watched different skies light up that night. You under yours, me under mine, 2,763 miles between us. It was the Fourth of July — a day an entire country celebrated independence — and all I could think about was us.

Because while everyone else celebrated independence, I celebrated the beautiful dependence we found in one another. Not the kind where we cannot stand on our own, but the kind where two people who could live completely separate lives wake up and still choose to intertwine them. To depend on your voice when the day gets heavy. Your reassurance when my mind gets loud. Your love when the distance feels impossible. To know that somewhere thousands of miles away is a heart I can call home.

Sometimes love is watching two completely different skies and knowing we are wishing beneath them for the same future. So while the sky celebrated freedom, my heart celebrated belonging — to you, to us, to every mile we have crossed and every mile that will one day disappear.

Because one day there will not be a California sky and a Pennsylvania sky. There will just be our sky. And when that day comes, I will look back at every flight, goodbye, late-night call, countdown, screenshot, tear, argument, flower, kiss and ‘I miss you’ and know those 2,763 miles never stood a chance.

♫ “Better” — Khalid

I love you to the moon and back… and then a lil farther.

B + L • since 06.12.25 • made only for my Jaan

from the beginning to now

This was us.

If somebody had shown me all of this on the day I swiped up on your note about Shaq’s toes, I do not think I would have believed them. I would not have believed that the girl behind that screen would become the person I would board planes for, cry in airports for, pray beside, grieve beside, argue with, forgive, miss, return to, and somehow love more after knowing every imperfect part of her.

It started with one reply. Then 05.22.25 became our first conversation. 05.25 became the first time we really talked about relationships. 06.12 became the day I asked you to be mine. 07.10 became our first argument — and our first lesson that choosing each other would sometimes mean learning how to repair, not just how to love when everything was easy.

Then I flew to you. I saw you in front of me instead of through a screen. I felt the nerves, held your hand while we walked with your friends, went to IniBurger with you, and started collecting the kind of memories that cannot be recreated through FaceTime. Then came 10.13, you asking me to stay, and the airport where we cried because suddenly distance had a face, a hand, a voice and a person I did not want to leave.

Then your birthday. Our pink bear — our ridiculous little ‘first child.’ I came back. We had our first Valentine’s Day. We woke up before sunrise for IHOP with Sameer and Dorian. We prayed Fajr together. We wrapped toilet paper around a car and went to Denny’s. We laughed without knowing some of those ordinary nights would become priceless. Then we lost our friend, and for the first time our love had to exist inside real grief too.

There were dinners and car trouble, nights beneath stars and above bridges that felt like they were carrying us into another world. There was the first time I got severely sick in front of you and you stayed by my side even though you had class. There were arguments over the phone and arguments in person, apologies, reassurance, tears, laughter, silence, growing pains, and all the times we had to remember that being in love also means learning how to love each other better.

We spent so much of our story counting things — days until I saw you, hours until a flight, miles between Pennsylvania and California, months together, eventually an entire year. But somewhere along the way I realized love was never really in the numbers.

It was in you asking me to stay. It was in your hand finally being inside mine. It was in an IHOP before sunrise. A prayer beside you. A stupid pink bear. Tears at an airport. Roses on Valentine’s Day. You taking care of me when I could barely take care of myself. The arguments we thought were enormous and the apologies that reminded us we were bigger than them. It was in every ordinary day between the memories worthy of photographs.

Then 06.12.26 came — one whole year — and after everything that year gave us, I still wanted the same thing: more time with you. More ordinary days. More flights until we do not need flights anymore. More birthdays. More Ramadans. More mornings. More versions of us.

And then July 4th: two skies, 2,763 miles, the whole country celebrating independence while I thought about the beautiful way our lives had learned to depend on each other. Not because either of us is incomplete alone, but because out of all the people in this world, we keep choosing to make room for each other.

So no, this is not a website about our first year. It is proof that we lived one. Proof that all those tiny moments actually happened. Proof that distance could separate our bodies without ever convincing my heart that you were far away.

We did not have a perfect first chapter. We had ours. And I would not trade a single page of it, because every version of us brought me closer to the woman I want beside me for all the chapters we have not lived yet.

This was only the beginning.

B + L
06.12.25 — ∞

In this life and the next, Jaan.

all because of shaq’s toes…

For My Jaan