Wolframite

October 30, 2020

To My Dearest Wolfgang,

Happy First Anniversary, My Love ♡ .

When you had asked me how I wanted to celebrate our first anniversary, I was at a loss. Out of the one day throughout the whole year, I felt like it would pale in comparison to the smaller but more frequent celebrations of life together — from our Friday afternoon and weeknight post-dinner walks outdoors, to our Frisbee and tandem bike days at the beach, or our standing picnics at our local secret spots, to eat lunch right out of your trunk, or your small gestures of love throughout the day, to cite a few instances of these small celebrations: My heart couldn't be happier. Although these days were spent engaging in simple activities, it's the frequency and dedication of these times spent together, coupled with your busy schedule, that made it mean the most. Your effort to always make Saturday, a day solely dedicated to me, is why I don't feel the need to receive a present on our anniversary. Sure, presents are always nice and sweet, but sometimes, it's the amount of time spent together with a person that is all that you ever want — and that's something I've been missing from my life, romantically speaking, up until we happened.

At the beginning of our relationship, when you told me that Saturday is a day just dedicated to doing whatever I wanted, I was skeptical at first, but here we are, a year later, realizing that you truly meant it — and more. For example, I thought that you would cave-in when I took you to the Dumpster Fire figurine release event at JapanLA in Little Tokyo on Leap Day 2020, but there you were, standing in line with me for a little over an hour, to be one of the first 100 customers — the 81st and 82nd to be exact — patiently waiting, while taking the whole experience in stride, even if you could not understand the draw behind it all. As silly as it is to say this, because of you, I won the Golden Dumpster Figurine — one of only 4 figures ever made — at the raffle, which made the experience even more memorable. That was one of the last memories we made, right before the CoViD-19 lockdown, and one that made me realize what it truly means to live in the moment no matter what the given circumstances are, because they could either get better or worse the next day, as "negative" and "positive" circumstances are all relative in the grand scheme of life. When I endured my first vehicular collision and had to deal with the fallout from that, I thought of letting that whole matter pass first, in order to enjoy my life, but you didn't let me: you beckoned me to continue living my life, instead of "waiting for the perfect moment" and to see to it that I continued to do the things that brought me joy. You were the one who took that mental list I have, of things that I wanted to do, and cast off to make them a reality, even if you had to drag me to do the very things I wanted to do, simply because I was hoping for a "better time". Sure enough, when the pandemic hit, I suddenly felt grateful for having been able to do all that we had, even if the circumstances were not so ideal at that particular moment in time. The imperfectness can lead to randomization and sometimes, randomization can bring you the greatest luck — something we encountered a lot, during our journeys together.

In one year together: we experienced what probably 10 or more years would have afforded us, in fast-forward. In the first 2 months of our relationship, you already came to my aid, career-wise, public safety-wise, vehicular accident-wise, and it was also during this time when we became stranded on the freeway for nearly 40 hours, due to the Southern California snowstorm; in the first 3 months of our relationship, you rushed me to the hospital at 3:00 AM one day, for a medical concern that arose in the middle of the night; in the first 5 months, we were faced with a global pandemic; in the first 8 months, we survived a war zone of riots, looting galore, and civil unrest brewing all around our city, with the military tasked to defend our neighborhood and with our neighbors outside their establishments and on their roofs with their shotguns; and in the first ~11 months, I helped prepare you for your American Citizenship examination.

From the time you offered me refuge for personal safety reasons when the police deemed that it wasn’t safe for me to continue living in my place of residence back in December of 2019, to the pandemic and looting and rioting — rendering me unable to travel nor to purchase another vehicle — all the way to the present day, it seems, fate kept bringing us physically back together. You may not have been there for occasions like my 21st birthday, my Civil Air Patrol milestones, or my university graduation as a passive guest, but you were there for me, actively coming to my rescue when large troubles found my way. With what life has thrown at us so far, I'd be surprised if something came our way in the future, that we couldn't vanquish.

Diamond is the hardest natural material known on Earth, but it isn't the strongest — Tungsten carbide is. Humans often liken themselves to diamonds, but diamonds are formed as a result of natural processes rather than artificial ones. This makes the metaphor unrealistic, because when in life are sequences of events in actuality, solely a result of natural processes? Unlike a diamond, Tungsten carbide is an alloy — it takes the properties of both Tungsten and Carbon together to create something stronger, and is a result of human engineering — i.e. a man-made process. Humans aren't born toughened; it's these randomized, “unnatural” experiences that afford them the conditions to become strengthened. Even so, their ability to withstand the bombardment of life's challenges can sometimes only be accomplished with a pair. Alone, we are Tungsten and Carbon, but together, we can make Tungsten carbide — historically known as “Wolframite” [AKA Wolf Rahm], whose prefix, “Wolf”, is like your namesake.

Happy First Anniversary, Mein LieBEAR 🧸♡🧸.

I Love You,

Deine Liebe, Angelica