hey world...

i am what i am.

have you ever had a moment of clarity? i did last night.

manlyman had not been home from work for 15 minutes when i asked him to look at this video from wicked i'd found on youtube. just this one i said.

2 hours later he was still watching videos i'd found. i felt this gentle tug behind me, pulling me slightly out of the moment. i looked to my left, & saw this man willingly watching showtune after showtune with me. for me. he was there, & he was present. his eyes weren't glazed, his face showed no sign of being bored out of his skull.

don't get me wrong - manlyman has nothing against musicals, he enjoys them on occasion. they just aren't his favorite genre. he isn't the one who dreams in them. of them. about them. there were a kajillion other things he would have rather been doing, or watching; but he sat with me instead. he probably knew that there would be more than just that one video when he sat down; even though i really did mean just one. i always do mean just one.

in that moment i realized he does things like that all the time.

he'll look up from a golf an art magazine; for the umpteenth time; to listen to me read a paragraph about grammar, or an entire chapter on how the english language came to be. these things don't fascinate him in the least - they're my bit of freak. still he looks up, & listens without a hint of not caring in his demeanor. he never says a word when i say that i'm going to listen to music with my headphones, but not to worry because i won't be singing along. i always mean it, but i always end up singing at the top of my lungs. afterward i apologize, & he says that he enjoyed listening to me sing. he even sounds as though he means it.

i am not saying he should be marked for sainthood - oh no. the man does not understand the lure of the dollar store, he neither oohs nor aahs when i show him my treasures from an afternoon thrift-shopping, he doesn't crave any food of any kind ever, he doesn't believe that i really am allergic to doing the dishes, there are golf art things strewn from one end of the belfry to the other...

i think what i'm saying is that i saw that he takes me for who i am. he accepts my freaks, & sees them as a part of the whole. i was going to say as part of the package, but that just sounded a tad dirty for the middle of the day. or is that just where my mind goes? no need to come out of lurkdom to answer that question - it was rhetorical.

it comes down to acceptance. i learned (the hard way) a few years ago to look at my friends, & decide if the quality of love & friendship they offered was worth the freak they brought along for the ride. if i were to gather my nearest & dearest today it would look like a freak convention to be sure - but they are truly worth it all.

the other side of that is that i need to be accepted. i need to know that the people to whom i entrust my love & friendship accept me in spite of the freaks i bring along. usually i feel that they do, but lately not with everyone.

i digress. the point of this post; yes there was a point originally; is that i think i'm pretty damned lucky. manlyman knows i'm flawed. he knows my freaks better than i - he knows it all & accepts it all. it's like having permission 24-7 to just be me! hey world, i am lucky indeed.

~peace.