Holocene

I recently discovered that I love someone deeply. Today's photo is of us at a dumpsite, checking out a project. Typical Sunday afternoon, right? :) I knew I liked him, but one day I woke up and discovered that I love him deeply. I love him in a manner that I haven't in a long, long time. Perhaps ever. He is beauty and light and truth and wisdom and imperfection and laughter and evolution and moral imagination and questions and flaws and late nights and long conversations and good dinners and reading quietly and countless drinks and smiles and inside jokes and bullshit-o-meters and neurotic women and battles with hair gel and incredible friendship and red converse sneakers and swearing and passion and commitment and depth and honesty and teasing and high metabolism and rainy afternoons by fireplaces.

He is my kind of perfect.

I adore him with every single fragment of my soul.

I've been listening to the new Bon Iver album over and over lately. Don't you love that amazing point when you find an album/song that makes you feel like your soul wrote it? You hear it and you're certain what's in your head and your heart has been made audible. And you sigh, not in sadness, but in release, because now you can hear what you're thinking/feeling, and - if others are listening right - they can, too.

One of my favourite lines is from the song 'Holocene' is "And at once I knew I was not magnificent." I don't know why this strikes me so much. It's not like I ever thought I was magnificent to begin with. :) It just stands out. It's like it's telling me that I should know that I am not magnificent, and that should be okay. Like I should be forgiving of myself, more understanding of my limitations, more accepting of the vagaries of life. More comfortable with imperfection, uncertainty, lack of clarity. Like I should be more open to life, because what my fears tell me to hold to is nowhere as great as what the possibilities are.

Here's to the ability to love. We occasionally lose that ability when the knowledge of our lack of magnificence shatters us, rather than emboldening us to embrace life with all its potential and actual failures. Here's to not being shattered by not being magnificent.