my ex could be very endearing

Suddenly recalling some happy times with my very long ago ex husband. . .

He had never cooked anything. He took boyish delight in being 'allowed' to help me cook our dinners after work.

He had never ventured out of the core cities where we went to law school until I suggested it.

He had never been to a pro sports game until I suggested we go to one of Minneapolis' pro sports teams. We ended up going to lots of North Star hockey games. I think the North Stars are gone. We went to many Minesota Kicks games, a pro soccer team. Tailgating. We went to some Twins games. Never the Vikings. I had no interest in football.  He had never been to a pro sports game because he had grown up in a small city with no pro sports teams and he grew up poor, so no money to travel to see a game.

When we moved to the small city he grew up in, we sometimes drove to Kansas City to see the Kansas City Royals. The idea of going to Kansas City just because we felt like it tickled his delightful child-self and then, icing on his cake, the KC Royals! 

I was always casting about for new exerpiences I could introduce him too. It was a delight for me to see his boyish delight in doing things for the first time.

I have a super power. I can direct my love rays around obstacles. When I love someone who does not behave in a loving way towards me, someone who does not seek out ways to delight me as I do for others, my love is like a heat-seeking missile. I do this thing in my mind's eye, with my love moving around any obstacles that arise, turning and curving and heading straight to the other being's core.

Once I have loved that way, I don't stop loving the person. My long ago ex -- we've been divorce about 33 years -- has always refused any contact with me, even when we were still raising a minor child. He would not talk to me about her.  He's basically never talked to me since we separated 34 years ago. Which is okay now. I have moved far beyond that relationship.

Just now, however, when I remembered he carved his first Halloween pumpkin because of my coaxing him to do so, then remembering his boyish delight in carving that pumpkin, I remember the love I felt for him. This is my super power.  I love around anything and everything.