After being married thirty-two and a half years and knowing my better-half for almost thirty-four years, I learned something new about him while celebrating Christmas during a pandemic. I know, it’s incredibly amazing to think you know someone, and then find out that maybe you don’t know them as well as you thought you did. Of course, he is learning that he doesn’t know me very well either.

So, what could we possibly learn about each other after so many years together? After so long, wouldn’t we be almost done discovering new things about each other? Considering we have been living the working life since before we got married, I guess that it only makes sense, unless we stick to a weekly date, that we might miss a few things along the way.

During this Christmas break, as we went back and forth between our current home and our future home, and figured out where we were celebrating Christmas and New Year’s, I learned that hubby’s favorite color is not blue but maroon. You can only guess where he went to college, lol.

As I process this new information, all of a sudden my mind jumps to a memory of when our then eight-year-old son, came to me after school one day and asked what was his daddy’s favorite color. I hesitated for the tiniest moment because, for as long as my son has understood colors, his favorite color was one of my favorite colors – pink.

As I told our son, ever so calmly, that his dad’s favorite color was blue, I knew that forever more he would be a little less mine and a little more his dad’s. He was growing up, and I felt that moment was the beginning of losing him forever into his own manhood. This is inevitable, of course. But when he is your only child, well, that can be pretty tough to digest.

Now, after all these years, I wonder how our son would have reacted had he known his dad’s favorite color was maroon and not blue. Would his, okay, from now on, my favorite color is blue, be the same? Or, would he have asked, what’s maroon, and decided to stick with pink as his favorite color. A mom can only hope, right, lol. But, of course, there was that part of me which acknowledged that blue instead of pink was probably a safer color for him in the eyes of his peers.

I also learned this past Christmas that my husband likes peas. Yes, peas. How could I not know this? Maybe because I have always had a love-hate relationship with peas? Or because we didn’t always eat conventionally due to his shiftwork? Once I realized this phenomenal thing, I contemplated all the wonderful pea salads I could have been making over the years. Now that I can no longer eat condiments of any kind, it will certainly be a challenge, but I think I’ll give it a try the next time we have a sit-down meal again.

So, what has hubby learned about me that he didn’t know before now? Well, he has always known I have a similar yet different taste in music than he does. Over New Year’s Eve, when we took time to listen to favorite songs and even dance, he was quite surprised by one of my favorite songs by Bon Jovi, “Someday I’ll Be Saturday Night.” If you haven’t heard it before now, listening to it in its entirety is best. I love songs that tell a story and the video for this one does a great job of showing how the average person, the struggling person, the person looking for a step up in the world, hopes to one day fulfill their dream of living a better life for themselves.

One thing my hubs is continuing to learn about me is that I am a country girl at heart. I grew up in the country, but he met me in the city. So, it is taking him a while to figure out that I can handle myself in the country. I can hike. I can get dirty. I can work hard. I can tough it out. I am not afraid of the dark. I am not afraid of spiders, snakes, or bees (maybe coyotes), although I do have a healthy respect for them. I can do all those things that I once did a very long time ago. The difference is this time around I get to live the country life with him AND I get to appreciate living this country life in a way I never knew how to appreciate as a kid.

I hope that if you have a love in your life, whether it is a new love or longer – like me – and the love of your life, that you take the time to visit with each other, to listen to one another, to really hear things, the stories that make them who they are. Do more than just go through life, living, doing and working. Take time for a weekly date, if you can. Take time to listen to their favorite song. Learn their favorite color. Become aware of the foods they like. Whatever you do, love them in sickness or heath, in good or bad, in the city or the country, and in the serious or the silly. Always be open to discovering new things about your better half. It’s amazing how good it feels after all these years to learn that there are new things to discover about each other. It’s like falling in love all over again.

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Blogs are posted weekly, usually on Sundays, then the link is shared on other platforms including but not limited to Pinterest, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook depending on the topic. Topics include: marriage, integrity, social media, and acceptance.

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