heading into love month.....

i call it 'love month.'
yeah, february.
just cause it has valentine's day in it.
but i figure that's a great reason to grab the whole month and celebrate love.
cause i'm into love.
i want to live love, breathe love, be love.

and nah, i fall short all the time.
constantly.
BUT! i still want it.
and i so definitely want to think about it, write about it, and celebrate it!
so here we go.......

i was biking and thinking of my guy.
and what happened was something i thought would be worth passing along
here...for us to consider with our partners, children, family, friends......anyone
we're close to.

i thought of how incredibly different from me he is.
and i was in awe of his differences.

ha.....how's that for a twist?
ya see, i've spent a whole lotta time not what you'd call in 'awe' of those darn differences.
i've fought them,
struggled with them,
ran from them,
and just plain didn't appreciate them.

my fears and struggles with them have blocked a whole lotta love.
a whole lot.

i guess we've worked so hard at our relationship, that i've learned to trust
him enough to step back from the fear of the differences and actually see them.
or...maybe...to be really honest....to START to see them. i think i have a long
way to go.

i'm amazed at how long we've been together and i still truly truly feel like there's
so much more for me to know about him. and i think the appreciation of the
differences will give me a new lense with which to look thru.

and here's the thing - those differences are different from me.
yeah, no brainer, right?
but if they're different.....and i mean REALLY different, it's hard to know them,
because i don't have the first clue about them.

he's brilliant with technical things. just brilliant. he has a whole vocabulary and
a whole world inside his brain that i don't even know about. i just know there's
this 'technical stuff' in there. i always thought that was cool. but you know, that's
about it. i was glad for it, and liked he was smart. but you know......it kinda
stopped there.

well......how about really seeing it?!
really really seeing it...and just so valuing it as part of who he is,
and how it affects everything he does and everything he thinks.
what i see is limited, cause i don't have any of that in me, so i think it's gonna
take me awhile...
but i'm starting to really watch, really look, and i'm floored by what i see.

i'm not sure why i can start to see and appreciate now.
i'm not sure if it's the trust we've built, the trust i've built inside myself,
the strength in my own self that's grown, so i can look at others with less fear...
i have no idea.

but i do know this..........
i haven't appreciated the differences like this before.
and how many people can i say that about? how many people am i dismissing,
or rolling my eyes at, or struggling with or just blocking some form of love from
because i'm not really appreciating their differences?

i've always been intrigued by differences. i think if i read this a year ago, i'd
nod say 'sure' and assume that i do this already. heck, if i read this a month ago,
i'd assume that.

which makes me think - whenever i assume i do something already,
maybe that's a good clue i should stop and look and go a little deeper.
cause if i'm assuming it, i may very well be taking it for granted that i do it,
and not actually do it with the depth that i want to.

and this morning, i realized how much i've been missing.
and what a great thing to realize as i head into love month..........