Same Kind of Different

     There’s a lot of things different about me lately.  Over the past year I have really grown and matured in many ways.  I find thing that I used to worry about to be silly and insignificant.  I have also found that now instead of messing up in what I would call “big things” I mess up in the little things.  Despite the great amounts of growth I have gone through as of late I am still by no means perfect.  As I go through life looking through a different set of lens I have now encountered a different set of snags.  I am in a new and amazing relationship with a man who I love very much!  For the first time in my life I feel as though I could see myself marrying this guy.  Our relationship is, shall we say, non-traditional.  He is quite a bit older than me and we live almost 9 hours apart.  Despite the age difference I discovered very early on that he was the same kind of different as me.  We started out as friends, best friends actually, and I loved and enjoyed every moment of his company.  He is one of the few, well really the only, person I have been able to be completely myself around and feel totally safe.  Recently our deep bounds of friendship developed into some more emotional ties and we started dating.  Let me say first of all…. I royally suck at relationships!  I love and care very deeply and I will give all I have all the time, but I can sometimes get snagged on silly things.  I have a tongue that, more often than not, is quicker than my head.  I say things and then go… really Jess?!  I am very lucky though because he is so patient with me and as quick as my tongue is, his forgiveness is always quicker.  I think that was one of the clues that God must have created him to be with me because He knew I would need someone extra special to put up with my silliness!  Our friendship and now relationship has taught me so much.  It has taught me how to have patience and how to have peace in the midst of the storms of life.  It has taught me how to be slow to anger.  That one is a new one for me and I’m really starting to get the hang of it!  It’s so funny because I get fired up about stuff and he will be like, “why are you mad about that it’s not even important.”  He’s right, of course, but I’d never admit that to him!  I feel so extremely blessed to have him in my life! He puts up with so much for me and because of me.  My dad always told me that when you find that one person you’re willing to sacrifice “my” dreams for “our” dreams.  I know he does sacrifice and will always sacrifice for me and us and I would give anything for him and his happiness.  Sometimes I just sit and try to figure out ways to tell him how much he means to me but I can never find anything quite right that expresses how I feel.   So here I am, writing, a sappy post for the world to see, which is, however unlike me, exactly how I feel.  I know that I’d be in a very dark place right now if God hadn’t brought this man into my life.  He ruined me, changed me, healed me, freed me, found me, taught me, embraced me, fixed me, understood me, forgave me, and most of all loved me.  He stole my heart and I feel that it will forever be his.  No matter the miles between us or the obstacles in front of us, us we will always be.

P.s. I love you.