My growing dislike of promoted love

With full knowledge that this may be misconstrued I have to say that I am growing to dislike holidays more with each passing one.  Not the essence of holidays, but the commercialized purchase push associated with them.  I cannot get over the fact that there is something wrong with a culture that ties the concept of love with things multiple times a year, constantly attempting to associate human value with purchase power. 


Here is what is resonating with me more and more:  Things mean nothing.  If my house burned down tomorrow (and my family got out safely) the only thing I would mourn would be photographs. (...and probably my poetry journals.)

15th Anniversary at the restaurant we ate at on our honeymoon.

People matter.  Memories matter.  Everyday moments matter. 

The hypocritical part?  I still went out and bought my girls and husband gifts.  It was not as much as previous though, and it is not that I do not want to have to give gifts, it is that I do not believe loving and giving should be confined to pre-printed dates on a calendar.  

When Barry sees, hears, or reads something he knows would interest me and he takes the time to share it by relating a story, or a passage from a book, or the way black-eyed susans leaned through a fence as if reaching out to greet him (Okay~ he would not say it quite like that.) that is an expression of love to me because he knows that the minute and the everyday are what fascinate me.  He knows that I look at the world with the open heart of a child and find beauty everywhere.  He knows me...that is what means so much.

It does not mean that if another person's love language is different than mine (quality time and physical touch) I think they are shallow or materialistic it is that I am growing to reject commercialized prompts.  I decorate for most holidays, major and some smaller.  (Seriously, St. Patrick's day is a favorite.) As things mean less and time means more I find myself gravitating toward the homemade, the handmade, the non-manufactured, and the thought out and unusual.  Perhaps that bleeds over from my preference for quality time, but it really is the thought that counts for me.  

As we sat together tonight on his all too short dinner break at a tiny Thai restaurant and handed each other our bought gifts I still enjoyed it.  I enjoyed the fact that our gifts were thoughtful, even though they probably would be misunderstood by the people around us.  

I bought him a book about interesting places to visit in the States.  I want to spend time with him doing things he enjoys.  He understood that it was not so much a book, but an invitation and a promise of, "I want to be with you."  I also wrote him a poem that expressed more than I could say in prose.

He bought me a small book of poetry, not because it was romantic (although it was) or because it was the thing to do on this day, but because it is my passion.  It was a love note and affirmation of what I do. 

Some day, hopefully many years from now when we have lived long and grown old together, our children will be sorting through our many books and find the inscriptions we penned today and will know us well enough to think they were romantic in their uniqueness.  

But even more so, I hope they find a random book inscribed with, "Because it was Tuesday and I found this small copy of Faulkner and I thought of you," and they will realize our love was so deep and plentiful that it was not bound to dates pre-printed on a calendar.

Our tradition

Christmas 2011

Bary and I started dating in October 1993.  Christmas came quickly and I did not know what to get him. I wanted to give him something thoughtful, but not too personal. I decided on a stocking. I filled it with candy, his favorite gum, soda, and two Civil War paperbacks.  I may have not spent a lot of money but I wanted him to know that I paid attention to what he liked, that I paid attention to him.  After that, our tradition was set. Each Christmas Eve we exchanged stockings.  Some years those little things were our only gifts to each other but they were more special for it.

While we were dating

My stocking two years later was my most memorable. He had bought me a romantic ornament from the Hallmark store, chocolate, expensive perfume, and other little things. At the bottom of my stocking was a small box... 

After 15 years...

We still exchange stockings each Christmas Eve after our girls are "all snug in their beds," and each year his gifts are loving and thoughtful. Little things I have mentioned, little treasures I sigh over.  And every year I remember the feel of the jeweler's box on the tips of my fingers, how my heart beat faster as my hand closed around it, knowing. How my breath caught as he asked me to marry him. How I know I would still say yes today and every day in between.   

My favorite story

Sign Photo courtesy of Michelle at Prudently Painted Vintage.

Once upon a time a girl met a boy.  They were 12, awkward, and barely noticed each other three or four years.  They went out on a few dates in high school but she was foolish and he was a nice guy who did not seem as interesting as the older guys she usually dated.  Fast forward a few more years when they went to college at Westark.  She had just ended a one year marriage and had a two year old daughter.  They went to the same college but had never seen each other on campus.  Their classes ended at about the same time on the same days in the same building, it was October and they had never so much as bumped into each other.

She was sitting home one night thinking about her friends from school that seemed so far away from the life she was living.  She thought about everyone she had known and guys she had dated.  She thought about him, about how nice did not seem like a negative now.  She realized her foolishness.  So she took a chance.  She pulled out the phone book and called the first Mason listed in the little community she knew his parents had lived in.  It was his Grandma's house.  They had a nice conversation and his Grandma gave her his phone number.

She was more nervous than before but she called him and said the stupidest thing, "In my yearbook you said to keep in touch, so I am.  Keeping in touch that is.  Um, how have you been doing?" Somehow he did not think she was an idiot and they talked for hours.  Then she said, "Maybe we could get lunch after class some day." Rather eagerly he said, "How about tomorrow?"

She took him to Ed Walker's drive-in and they made more plans.  She went to work and he went home.  Later that night he came over.  They watched a movie and he held her hand.  When they said goodnight he kissed her and she knew she never wanted to kiss anyone else ever again.  This was their beginning.  It was not always going to be easy, but their relationship had started.  This is their love story.  His and mine.  It is my favorite story.