I saw a post about love.  A meme talking about unconditional love and it triggered my own thoughts on the subject. The gist was that if people can hate blindly then a person can love blindly.

As a child, I saw the damage that hate and anger could do to a person.   The details aren’t important.  Or maybe they are.   But, looking back at the those things right now would take me to a place I don’t want to be.

Today’s post is about love.  The things and people I love.

I love my family, both my biological and my chosen family.  They keep me centered and going.  When the doctor told me this week that my knee issues weren’t going to get better. They were there.

I miss my Papa. His love. His unconditional love pushed me to go forward in life.

I love my furry baby, Luke, who has helped me though so much.  The phrase who rescued who really does apply here.

I love my boyfriend and the freedom he has given me to be myself. We don’t have a traditional relationship which works for both of us.  One thing he taught me in the last year was that it is important to clarify your words and asking for things is not a bad thing. He was direct with me.  And I was able to be direct with him as well.

I love my job as a Special Educator and the growth it fosters in myself. I love being a writer and creating new worlds with words.

I love the garden that my chosen family helped me to build, watching the plants grow day after day is wonderous.  I love that my enjoyment of gardening comes from my Pa (my mother’s father), my grandmother (my father’s mother) and my aunt.  They each had gardens and took pride in  them.  Pa grew vegetable that helped feed us.  The only thing I didn’t like was when Granny would take the tomatoes and can them. The smell of vinegar haunted me for years.

I love going for hikes in the near by mountains and my daily walks in the neighborhood and in the back field.  I love seeing the mist hug the mountain ridges that surround my home.  I love the mist that lingers in this valley. I love the cows that sometimes run through my yard even when they eat the ornamental grass.

I love music and books.  I love the smell of used books stories and wandering the stacks for treasures.  I love the conversations that come from talking with others about my finds.  I love that I have friends who I can plan and plot trips around going to see used books stores.

I love working out to music that was made decades ago but whose power hasn’t faded.

There is a lot more that I love about this world than I hate about it.  But all the things I love, I love with my eyes open.  I think about Papi and the love we had for each other.  Sometimes it was blind and full of burning passion, but the best times were when our eyes were wide open and we saw each other warts and all.

I think when we love with our eyes open, we see that no love is perfect.  We see that everything has flaws but those mark us all more beautiful and loveable than even we understand.