TASK #7: THE BIG “T.U.”
“In love there are two things – bodies and words”. Joyce Carol Oates
Well, here comes another Valentine’s Day, the most perplexing..I don’t know what it is exactly. Is it a national holiday? Nope. It’s a “put pressure on your relationship” day, especially if you’ve just started dating someone. I mean, you go overboard on the dinner and the gift because you want to get laid, but she sees it as a declaration of your love–well, that’s a perception issue that you may never recover from…
It’s not much better for married couples. I get my wife a card and we try to get reservations and grab a quick bite, but there’s work and kids and you don’t want to miss the Cav game and Omarosa is on Big Brother…like I said: pressure.
I do love her, but it’s not in some Hallmark way–it’s in the “you’ve stood by me even though I gambled away the money we were gifted at our wedding, even though I lost my job when you were pregnant, even though my six pack is long gone and I’ve worked hard to replace it with a beer belly, even though I can’t seem to shake the habit of staring at women half my age…
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And I don’t like declaring my undying love for her, because it sounds phony when I say it. I do love her, but it’s not in some Hallmark way–it’s in the “you’ve stood by me even though I gambled away the money we were gifted at our wedding, even though I lost my job when you were pregnant, even though my six pack is long gone and I’ve worked hard to replace it with a beer belly, even though I can’t seem to shake the habit of staring at women half my age…
So what I do every year is thank her. I give her a Valentine’s card and inside I thank her for the f—ing great things she did for me in the last year.
Now, you may not have a wife to thank, but I know that there’s someone in your world that deserves to be thanked. Let me repeat: there is someone in your life that deserves a “thank you”. You know it. I know it.
And it’s not necessarily the obvious person. It could be the guy in the next cubicle who covered for you when came into work so hung over that your hair hurt. Or the guy who spotted you rent money after you blew it in Vegas. Or the guy at the record store who cut you some slack and gave you a deal on the John Lee Hooker album you just had to have, or the friend who drove you in the middle of the night to get your car out of the impound lot…because you
parked it under a “no parking” sign…and then you forgot where it was…and you didn’t want to tell your wife because it was going to cost $70 for the tow and $150 for the fine…which you had to put on a credit card. Oh fuck that was a bad night–did I mention that there was Stone’s Double Bastard Beer involved? A beer that advertises that it’s “stronger than whiskey”? No? Well there was.
Anyway, over the past couple of years, along with the Valentine’s card I get for my wife, I get a couple for the guys who’ve done me a solid.
TASK
Buy a few cards. Send them to the people in your life you want to thank. Tell them why. That goes for the woman in your life as well.
Photo by Sharon