My Love Affair with Apple.

My dad bought me my first computer, a teal iMac, when I was twelve years old…

I used it mostly for The Oregon Trail and homework. A few years later, my parents bought me an orange iBook.

I joined Myspace, and loved taking my laptop everywhere I went. A few years later, my parents upgraded me to a new white iBook. I wrote essays. I signed up for Facebook. I stayed up late chatting with a cute boy named Brett on AIM. A few years after that, I saved up my pennies and bought a new MacBook all by myself. I started blogging. I joined Twitter. I discovered my love for photography. Last year, I saved more pennies and upgraded myself to a MacBook Pro. Somewhere in the mix, in addition to the five apple computers, I also acquired and/or purchased three iPods and two iPhones.

Apple products, for me, have always been more than just technology. For the past thirteen years, I’ve used these products for nearly everything. Homework. Flirting. Meeting new friends. Keeping in touch with old friends. Applying for college. Applying for jobs. Developing talents and passions. Learning, constantly.

When Brett and I first started dating we used to get in fake arguments about which was better: Macs vs. PCs. I had been a loyal apple user for years, him a loyal (see: nerdy) PC user, who was accustomed to building his own computers. He would list off all the things PCs could do that Macs couldn’t, and give me twenty reasons why they were better. My defense? Macs were cooler. And didn’t get viruses. So there.

Seven years into our relationship, I still hate PCs.

And Brett?

Well he just bought a new computer a few months ago….

A shiny new iMac, no less.

I win.

I owe that win to Steve Jobs, a visionary, and an inspiration to all of us. He wasn’t a sayer, he was a doer. May his legacy continue to inspire others for a long, long time.

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.” -Steve Jobs

“Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see things differently — they’re not fond of rules… You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things… they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.” – Steve Jobs