Opposites

For the most part, people marvel at how similar John & I are, definitely NOT an example of opposites attracting.  Yet, in so many ways that matter a lot, we are very different, whether by nature or nurture or both.

The most obvious difference is in religion.  I was raised within a strong religious community, surrounded by neighbors who cared a lot about religion, experiencing my entire education within religious schools.  It wasn't until my early thirties that I began to expand my circle of friends outside of people within my very small religion (I describe it as "so small, we're only known to God & ourselves").  It's important to note my awareness, since my very early twenties, that my grasp of faith was largely tethered to terms, rather than concepts, something that I found left me lacking.  John, on the other hand, was raised in a family where religion played a minor role.  As John tells it, his mother would have preferred being married by the justice of the peace, but his Dad's heart was set on their Episcopal ceremony.  He wasn't raised reading from the Bible or going to church.  When we met, he knew the well-know Bible stories, but that was it.  I was way more versed in religion than John.  But where I was really good with terms, John's deeply spiritual nature is rooted in wordless concepts.  He has been far more my spiritual mentor than I have been his.

Another obvious difference is diet & exercise.  Unless John is deathly sick, he runs through his 45-60 minute fitness program every day.  Without fail.  Me?  Ha!  His favorite breakfast is raw spinach accompanied by unsalted nuts & raisins;  me - two eggs over sauteed vegies with a thick slab of buttered homemade cinnamon raisin toast (and that gobs healthier than it once was).  John's birthday meal is poached wild salmon  with raw broccoli and roasted potatoes;  mine - 2" well-marbled steak, grilled medium rare (John would have done-to-a-crisp), with creamed mushrooms,  baked potato with butter & sour cream, and lightly steamed broccoli.  I like gravies, he likes dry.  I like sauced ribs, he likes just rub.  

Very different.  But those are relatively little ways that we are opposite.  There are way more serious ones.  Particularly when it come to letting go.

John believes in cemetaries, in bodies in caskets & burial plots;  I believe in giving your body to science & ending up as ashes.

I believe in living wills, in Do Not Resuscitate orders, in letting the body go because it's just a glove for our true being.  John believes in hanging on, on hoping doctors should take whatever means necessary to prolong life, that some form of life is better than none.  And that chills me.

I believe in letting go when the time comes, whether it is of things or of this earthly life;  John hangs on.  He kept a set of Brittanica because it belonged to his grandfather.  It took me months of pleading for him to relent & let me use their bookcase for books we actually use.  For me, the bookcase would have been enough;  not for John.  But he didn't care enough about them to put the encyclopedias in a safe place - he left them in the basement, where they got mildewed & had to be thrown out.  Even then, it took me weeks of pleading to get him to let go of them.  He hangs on.

It's been a point of sensitivity to me that we have a lot of wonderful Christmas ornaments that aren't used any more because we stopped having a big Christmas tree when Max got it into his head that it was there for his pleasure & took to climbing the branches (interesting that such a thing never occurred to Chessie or Gryf or Rennie).  It pains me to keep them boxed away, to think of them ultimately ending up at BATS.  So, this year I am beginning the process of moving them forward.  I have ones picked out for Whitney & Reynolds, for Scott & Karen, for Cheryl & Kelly & Bethany & Carl, for Angie & others dear to my heart.  

John is horrified.  How can I let go?  They mean so much to me.  

He doesn't grasp that because they mean so much to me, it matters that they are being USED by someone, not just stuck away in a big box with "Lockhart Christmas Ornaments" labeled on the side.  I won't be giving away ornaments that mean something to the two of us.  But there were 36 Christmases in my life before John came along, way more Lockhart celebrations before that.  These ornaments deserve to be on someone's tree, to have its story included as part of the gift.

Because each one has its own tale to tell, of who gave & to whom & when & maybe even where.  Who’s going to know that the little sailboat was a gift to Mom to put on the ClanLock tree on one of the many Christmases she spent Down Under with Mike & Kerry?  Or that a dear friend gave us the three handcrafted flying angels to symbolize the three Lockhart Ladies?  Or that Ian made this ornament, or Mom made that one when Peter was a toddler to distract him from the more fragile ornaments? 

In so many ways, John & I are remarkably similar.  But I like to let go, he likes to hold on.  That’s not just opposite, that’s cause for concern…