To ponder, if one had no comparison or knowledge of what was out there, any good received, perhaps even the simplest of all things, would considerably fill us with gratitude.
Think as a child, when the eyes lit up at something so simple as something to play with or that calmness to overtake a cry from just a gentle, loving hold.
Sure. It is wonderful to grow in wisdom, but travel back to the days of being a child when every day was pure innocence. There were no comprehension of days, no calendars to think to follow, no pressures from the world to adhere to or cause any sort of vexation.
Each day could be embraced with simplicity.
If we have become rigid and resistant to such innocence, at what point did we allow the heart, mind, body, or spirit to accept the welcome?
From the time of innocence broken, have we not been in pursuit to finding and understanding pure love?
Have we not gathered argumentative definitions of the very word- love?
When giving the responsibility for someone to love you, have we first learned to define what love we seek?
Anyone can keep a relationship going if they truly wanted to push through to the finish line for companionship or mere convenience. How many make it with love and peace is yet another add to the challenge.
Growth and maturation, among many other, are the priceless gifts to gain within matrimony.
I may have mentioned this before, but my husband is very similar to my Papa when it comes to remembering dates.
Papa bought Mama these three dresses she has passed down to me that I truly believe have only raised each of their value as time moves forward. She mentioned no special occasion of the time Papa had purchased them all at once.
As far as I can remember, Papa never paid attention to dates. There were many birthdays and anniversaries driven to spite I witnessed throughout Mama and Papa’s years of marriage because of this, shall we deem, flawed attribute.
My husband coincidentally belongs to this club. There are those of you, I suppose, if we had some tea together, where I would learn, share the same known affiliation.
Like Papa, my dearest husband will happily and excitedly have bought me something for absolutely no special occasion. Come a significant calendar day of event, however, even if to just be within a few days, let’s say, Valentine’s Day, is to arrive, come that day, he will have missed the “mark”.
On the day of a renowned occasion, my husband’s temperament is just as cool as ever- just like Papa’s. It’s as if they have learned to just relax, breathe, and let go the pressures of the, most of the time, no-win situation.
I remember feeling very cheated on our first Valentine’s Day together. We were both in college and just barely making ends meet and by midday, all I pouted about was a Valentine’s acknowledgment. I recalled my husband stepping out of our apartment, coming back with some small stuffed animal and flowers with a loving kiss.
How did I quietly feel? Terrible.
I had put my husband under the world’s demands. For what? Just so he could show me he loved me?
My husband’s kiss, as if it was the last part to his test that day, after he came back with things to give me, brought back the same guilt I recollect to have always powerfully felt each time I was lectured by Papa.
To this day, I can still picture Papa storming in, after having punished me for something I did wrong, verbally commanding me, telling me I had permission to hate him. And then, he would continue to talk with what would then, crush any thought of power or victory I had.
Papa would remind me that he would never forgive himself if anything were to happen to me.
The power of love. It humbles you to the fullest.
There I was, unhappy that my husband had not gotten me anything to acknowledge me on a nationally marked, significantly celebrated day and then, once he did, I was even less happier that he tried to make amends.
The power of love. It shuts you up. It humbles you.
Receiving punishment from Papa always made me feel devoid of love from him until he’d come heavily-footed back in to lecture me about how keeping me safe is all he hopes to be able to do even if I were to hate him for it. And, to cut the self-inflicted dagger I had already jabbed into my ribs after hearing Papa’s perspective, he’d tell me, as if he had been well aware I was convinced he hadn’t, that he loved me.
The power of love. It will cut you and make you silently bleed.
That feeling where you think to not be loved only to come to realize you are loved beyond measure.
I know my husband didn’t have to get me anything just to prove he loved me that day or any day. Still, because I silently sulked and most probably, whined, he gave me what he thought I needed to feel his love for me.
Problem was, had he gotten me that small stuffed animal and flower ahead of time, would they have been enough to suffice my desire to be acknowledged?
Would I still have found a way to sulk and whine?
This is what his kiss did for me- to think, “Who was wrong?”
Did my husband have to spend probably the little he had left to get me something just to appease me? We know the answer to that one.
Could we have used the money for something else? You know the answer to that one.
Am I worth an acknowledgment? Beyond measure. However, is it because the calendar told someone to? After over thirty years, I humbly know the answer to that one.
To turn back to that child once again and just not have a calendar to know- how had we seen each day?
To feel selfishly wronged only to crucify yourself to follow upon reflection of your self-made criteria to be loved “right” is an interesting polarity placed upon us.
I have drawer-full of gifts my husband has gotten me I know had no reason attached to each; a closet-full of memories of the times he helped me try things on before dresses, coats, shoes, jewelry, or even, purses, ever found themselves in my closet.
After so many years of missed calendar “marks”, I finally learned to embrace joy and peace like a child once again-the grateful one, that is.
This time, I laughingly know since being a child, I have now found the means to get myself my own tokens of appreciation.
The other part to someone getting you something is, help me to face this as a team here, we don’t always get what we want. Hence, after almost reaching half a century, I get what I want to hush myself.
Placing such weight on someone else is pressure no one should have to bare, especially not knowing if they would even amount to such expectation.
There is utter beauty and peace to be a child until one learns to want more and more.
I had become unreal. I felt it and acknowledged it. All those other times my husband would get me something for absolutely no reason at all and here I was pouting because he missed a National mark.
To this day, it still bites that my husband is one of those who does not believe in following the nationally acclaimed dates. He, like Papa, just never enjoyed the pressure.
I believe Papa would be patting my husband on the back for having said, “Every day is Mother’s Day.”
My children have witnessed their father buy me things because it was a Tuesday. I have received fun-loving coupons to jewelry just because.
Of all the things he has given me, I have come to admit and tell him that the most times he ever makes me feel priceless is when he scratches my head while I lay next to him or his lap while watching a movie with our children or how he comes from behind me to massage my neck or even better, massages my feet while he talks to me.
The National calendar hasn’t created those as days yet, to my knowledge.
Maybe one day we will come to realize altogether- Truly, the best things in life are free.
It is such a challenge to fight with what the world requests out of us versus what we naturally give from our hearts.
While I break away from pouting as I used to, I still see myself dissatisfied no matter how many years I have tried to tame myself. My dressers and closet have filled itself with things my husband gets me just because, but their meanings somehow are less when no special occasion was connected to them.
Why?
And when he does manage to get me something on special occasions, I tell myself I could have picked better.
Why?
There is always something about ourselves we are quietly working on.
A token of one’s love has no date.
Relationships just don’t win when set up to fail no matter what, I realize. When creating criteria of what makes one perfect, I realize my husband was perfect from the start held to unrealistic standards.
No calendar dates that.
