When I was a younger man, I would do the things a younger man is supposed to do when it came to celebrating events with my wife. I would buy gifts or cards or whatever, and give them hoping that she would be pleased. I'll leave it at that, as we like to run a nice PG-13 outfit here, but you all get the idea. There was a reaction that I was hoping for.
I've found that this is still true, but at some point it changed dramatically. I still want my lovely wife to be pleased, obviously, when I send her a note or buy her a gift or whatever, but at some point I set the bar in such a way that has made things kind of difficult. At some point, I found that what I really wanted was to achieve something that seemed totally counter-intuitive to my actual goals.
In essence, I'm not happy until someone cries.
This wouldn't work on me, because depending on my level of exhaustion, an overly sentimental dog food commercial can make me cry. My wife is made of stronger stuff, however, so I can only think of a few occasions where she has broken down on the basis of sentimentality. Each of these that I was the cause of stand out as a total win in my mind.
Of course, it's not always easy, and sometimes it turns out badly. Wrapping gifts in onion skin, for example, didn't work like I thought it would. The time I gave her a bowling ball and "accidentally" dropped it on her foot when handing it to her, likewise, did not give me the same thrill. Let's not even discuss the I-got-you-some-jewelry-and-oops-the-pepper-spray-misfired incident. That one landed my on the couch for a week, despite the fact that she really seemed to like the jewelry.
So yeah, it's not easy, but it's something to strive for. I guess I have to stick to the traditional methods of actually giving thought to the gifts I purchase. I'll also still be stuck reading each and every card in the Anniversary section of the local Hallmark store until I find something that suitably expresses my fondness for my lovely wife, or, giving up that quest (it's easy to eliminate anything that rhymes, but after that I have to think), actually write something on my own.
It's a good thing I found the one woman in the world who's worth all this effort. Happy anniversary, love.
1 comment:
Love you ;-)
Post a Comment