Day 7: Someone who understands you

John and me at the Espada Aqueduct and Acequia in San Antonio.

You must have known I was going to write about John, right? It's weird how sometimes the one you are closest to can feel like the one who understands you and at the same time, one who doesn't understand you. But who can completely understand someone else, anyway? I can't even understand myself most of the time. 

John and I are opposites. He's an extrovert; I'm am introvert. He likes noise; I like quiet. He knows all about music; I know about classical music. Over the course of our relationship (we met 27 years ago!) we've grown closer to each other in our tendencies and preferences. We're not quite as opposite as we used to be. We've moved toward each other in lots of ways, and one of those ways is in how we understand each other. 

John can sometimes anticipate what I'm going to say or think before I have said or thought it. Does this make me predictable? Or does it make him a good observer of me? I think it's the latter, mainly. All of us are predictable in some ways. But the ones who know us best have developed insights into our thinking that can help us know ourselves while we are being known. And I firmly believe that one of our deepest human desires is the desire to be fully known. More on that later. Maybe.