The big guy and I got back from our holidays yesterday.  We're both sick and dragging our butts around, looking woebegone. The photo is where we were last Wednesday.  We hiked to Bow Glacier Falls.  It was amazing. Beautiful and away from the world. 

I wasn't feeling great on the Thursday so we ended up driving more than walking which was okay.  It gave us a chance to talk.  We talked about relationships and what makes a relationship good. 

When I met my ex-husband I was young.  He was eight years older than me and a pilot.  I was a single mother with a three year old son.  My ex swept me off my feet.  He was good with my son and that was the most important thing to me at that time.  I looked up to him.  And then I grew up and stopped worshipping him.  I don't think he ever forgave me for that. 

I love the big guy but I don't worship him.  I have a rather accurate idea of who he is and I love him, just the way he is.  I don't want him to change.  He's stubborn and patient.  He really does look at the big picture.  He has also been badly hurt in the past and has a hard time letting others in.  He is also a tender, kind, thoughtful man who has one of the biggest hearts of anyone I've ever met. 

And he loves me as I am;  weepy, soft hearted, compassionate, stubborn, impatient me.  He doesn't want me to change, in fact he loves that I feel so deeply.  Neither one of us is perfect but we balance each other.  He gives me affection and attention and I give him tenderness and stability.  And he doesn't tie his affection and attention to sex as other men, cough (my ex husband) cough, did.  He doesn't love me because of sex and that means a lot to me, more than I realized.  It's strange the things that work themselves out of my head when I write things down.

But most of all, we respect each other.  He has gently told me when I have hurt him and I now work hard at not doing those things, although I slip up at times.  I don't want to hurt him.  And I have told him when things hurt me and he doesn't do those things anymore.  We both struggle with communication but that is a work in progress.  I hate conflict and struggle with that.  He asks me what I want and expects me to tell him what I want, not what I think he wants to hear.  I'm getting better at that, slowly. 

I trust him not to hurt me and he trusts me to do the same.  This is love. 

This is how I feel about him.

i carry your heart with me

 i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go, my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
                                                        i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

 i carry your heart with me(i carry it in my heart)

ee cummings