My husband and I are complete opposites:
I am a vegetarian. He is a carnivore.
I am an artist. He is a mechanic.
I am a planner. He is a doer.
I am passionate. He is apathetic.
I am nomadic. He is immoveable.
I like smooth jazz. He likes hard rock.
I am an "on fire" Christian. He has no great conviction one way or another.
Even though Rich and I are opposites, we do not oppose one another. When we got married, we opened the coloring book of life, chose different colored crayons and started on page one. Rich colored inside all the lines, while I took care of the outside of the box. At first, it was frustrating, because we did not understand how the other could miss such a vital part of the picture.
There were times when Rich would get so frustrated with my wonderlust with color that he wanted to strangle me. Rich's slow, methodical and agonizing regard for detail almost put me in the loony bin. In moments of utter exasperation, Rich and I wanted to throw our crayons down and get our own coloring book. But, we honored our promise finish the book and kept coloring with dogged determination. Finally, we completed the first, most difficult page-with no casualties.
During those first few pages, Rich and I took turns stepping away from the book and take a good long look at it. We would ponder the next color or let the other have their way and color around it when we came back to it. Each page got easier and we fell into a natural rhythm that got the job done with peaceful precision.
We refused to oppose one another and our opposite personalities began to reveal our commonalities. This has been proven true through our common love of nature, outdoors and watching things grow. My strengths in planning and the ability to see the "big picture" combined with Rich's uncanny mechanical genius was the catalyst to developing our property into the urban "Mother Nurture Homestead".
Rich and I are two peas in a pod when it comes to gardening and working on our microfarm. Put us in the dirt on a sunny day and you've got two of the happiest people this side of heaven!
Our appreciation and respect for each others opposite personalities has revealed our personal commonalities!
