Ronnie opened up my world. I can’t tell the story of my love for him without talking about the last six years: the years before and during my religious conversion.

I met Ronnie at a difficult time in my life. I was 24 years old, living in Cambridge MA with my college friends. I thought I had most of life figured out, except for the pesky continual fact that I was miserable.

I made friends but mainly failed to connect to them. I wrote stories but mainly failed to share them. Anxiety swallowed my ability to share my true thoughts, access my true feelings, and act from any place of confidence or power. I was watching my dreams shrink to fit the small person I was finding myself to be – and yet, while I was growing steadily less happy, I barely noticed the trend.

Looking back on the lonely, rather angry, atheist liberal me of 2016, I can see how scared of life I was; how scared of life I’d always been. There were so many metrics of a good life – career, marriage, social standing – I felt required to achieve; so much about my identity – educated, atheist, liberal – I felt required to be. There was so much about my past I had never looked at, never mourned, never questioned. So many beliefs I felt required to hold up as truths without questioning. I never noticed. I always thought I was just one step away from being happy, even as I grew steadily more constrained, ill, lonely, and emotionally paralyzed.

Enter Ronnie Deaver, stage right: a charismatic truth-seeking 21 year old that lit up the room around him. He had big dreams, grand schemes, and a willingness to question rules and disagree with a room’s consensus. He’d share himself openly, as if fearless, with the whole world.

I wanted to borrow his bravery, his willingness to act, his willingness to dream until I could learn it for myself. And oh, but we bashed heads and clashed and baffled each other. And he inspired me to dream, to act, to question the invisible walls I’d constructed around my identity, my opinions, my power in the world.

Why not question the rules, remake them for myself? I was giddy, like a child, experimenting for the first time. I threw a banana peel at the wall, because I could, and it exploded, and I laughed with the sheer joy of freedom – and cleaned banana off my wall and decided one exploded banana was enough exploded banana. And Ronnie laughed with me, pleased and shocked beyond measure at how much bigger I’d become, and my gratitude and admiration for him grew.

I found that I didn’t need Ronnie to give me permission to question, to act, to stand up on my own spine anymore. He had helped me find my wings.

Then he began to question spiritual questions and oh, how against it I was, how much better I knew – but he questioned anyway and I tried to answer what I knew oh-so-well how to answer… and came up short.

What did I know of the makeup of the world, really? The consciousness that seemed to arise from my blood and flesh and bones: my personal meat-suit collection of minerals and pints of water. I was made of stardust and I could have feelings about that! What did I know of the limitations of the universe and what made it? Of consciousness and morality and God?

My atheist views became more humble, more curious, more nuanced, and suddenly Ronnie became more than just a friend to me, but a fellow explorer in a new world.

To my shock, I found guidance in the universe, a presence I could speak to, who soothed my fears of being worthless, mortal, and deeply flawed. It guided me to the Dao De Jing and I found a text from 450BC describing everything I was experiencing. And yet still I thought I might be going insane, hearing things, making it all up – but Ronnie was right there, still the catalyst and the support for my growth, experiencing the same presence, the same guidance.

I knew, when we started dating, it would move quickly. Ronnie knew every demon in me - had seen them long before I had, and vice versa. Except, I was so terrified of marriage. I’d only ever heard it disparaged and mainly only seen it go badly. I was paralyzed by my fear of it.

Then one night, after feeling strongly guided to watch a documentary on Mother Teresa, I prayed and the suggestion came, louder than ever, ‘Tell Ronnie you’re ready to get engaged’.

Say what now? Engaged-engaged? Permanent-decision-married-type-engaged? Was I allowed to do that, little old flawed me that didn’t know how to make big decisions without years of fretting? I panicked. I argued and paced and squawked. And the still small voice answered ‘he is your guide, your support, your duty’.

My Guide, I didn't doubt for a moment. Ronnie had opened my eyes and softened my hardened heart. My Support, I didn't even need to consider. Ronnie had supported me through some of the hardest years of my life, through illness, grief, anger and fear like I'd never faced before.

But Duty? I argued quite a bit about that ‘duty’ word. Duty was not a thing I had invited into my life. I didn't even know what it meant. But the voice insisted it was what I wanted and I came to realize how deeply true that was. How badly I wanted the type of marriage I had read about but never seen, how much I loved standing strong in my purpose, how much I thrived within responsibility and duty. So I told the voice ‘I’ll ask again this weekend, in case you change your mind’. And it laughed at me, all paternal love, and did not, in fact, change its mind.

For which I’m deeply grateful. The day I told Ronnie I wanted to get engaged stands as one of the best of my life, only beaten by the day he finally proposed. I am happier than I’ve ever been and I know that’s thanks to Ronnie Deaver, who helped me break out of my shell and start to learn to fly, and thanks to God who brought him to me.