2014 was the year I married Allen, my favorite person in the world. In front of family and friends, I promised to love him with reckless abandon. I pledged to live the most soul affirming life with him. Quoting the effervescent RuPaul’s sacred words—“if you can’t love yourself, how the hell you gonna love someone else,”—I vowed that we always love ourselves enough to be great people as individuals who have the capacity for mercy, grace, and dignity; and through that self-love (not to be confused with selfish love), may we always show merciful, graceful, and dignified love to each other. With an open heart and an affection for the fictional Parks and Recreation couple Leslie Knope and Ben Wyatt, we repeated: “I love you and I like you.”