I dig gifts.
Tangible tokens that show love, thought and appreciation mean a great deal to me.
Which is pretty odd, considering I am not a fan of shopping.
But it’s true. I love gifts. It’s not a materialistic thing for me nor does it have to be something “amazing”. If you bring me a Diet Coke and I will squee like it’s a silver bracelet. One of the most cherished gifts I ever got was a ring fashioned out of some spare copper wire that was laying around and a letter that was written on a pad of Garfield paper.
For me it is about the effort. The thought.The intimacy that you know me well enough to pick something out. The follow through.
It really is “the gesture” that counts.
And I like tangible reminders of the people I love around me.
It’s like a badge that I can see, hold, wear, ect. that I am cared for.
It’s how I express my love and feelings for others as well.
I’ve always been this way.
When I was a little girl I remember my sister, Linny, buying me Red Vines and Dr. Pepper and taking me to the movies and the stuffed bear and huge lollipop that my sister, Melanie, brought back for me from New York where she was working as a nanny. In fact,when I started 1st grade I remember that every single day after school for the first week, Melanie ((who was 20 at the time) would have a little gift waiting at home for my sister and I. I RAN home to find a notebook, thumbprint cookies, pencils, etc.
I will never forget how special and loved it made me feel.
I’ve also felt the sting of the lack of these things with different partners I’ve had in my life or from friends growing up who seemed to think that one birthday card for a set of twins was perfectly fine. (I never minded if I knew someone had financial issues getting my twin and I separate gifts, or any gifts at all but seriously, is it THAT HARD to write two different cards? WE ARE TWO SEPARATE HUMANS EVEN THOUGH WE WERE HOUSED IN THE SAME GREEN HOUSE FOR 9 MONTHS, Y’ALL!)
And if you never do anything like that ever?
Ouch.
Stuff like that hurts and stings and is generally not awesome.
I don’t really know anyone else who thinks like this or puts the importance on it that I do. I’ve often just not talked about it because I’ve always been afraid of being mistaken for someone who is focused on “things”. Or that I would create this huge expectation that I will be mortally offended if you don’t get me a gift on my birthday.
Then a little book came out that spent a gajillion years hanging out on the NYT best sellers list and changed my hesitancy to talk about it.
I tend to avoid super-huge self-help, pop-psychology books, terms and fads. They get so over-quoted, discussed and touted to the point that I almost want to hurl and roll my eyes when they are brought up.
I barely survived the whole, “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus” years.
I don’t even want to get into “The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands”.
A few years ago, “The Five Love Languages” was a book published that seemed to be EVERYWHERE. Suddenly people (mainly women) were categorizing their needs and feelings into categories of ”Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, Receiving Gifts, Acts of Service, and Physical Touch.”
I avoided reading it for years and years because, well…
It became so cliche.
And I believe in fighting the cliche when at all possible.
I mean, you know when someone from “The Real Housewives of Orange County” says on national TV that, “MY LOVE TANK IS EMPTY!” to illustrate how unhappy her marriage is, you know it’s beyond jumped the shark. (And um, as an aside, how could anyone be unhappy with Donn? He is the sanest and most likeable person on that entire show. I mean, he could be “Housewife-hopping” Slade. That man kinda gives me butt heebies of “EEEWE”.)
But, I also realize that things become big for a reason and that being huge and popular isn’t a reason to discount all of the information offered just because of it.
So, when I read it because there was LITERALLY NOTHING ELSE TO BROWSE THROUGH, I was a bit surprised at how much I liked it. And I will say that this book does manage to do a good job of generally categorizing the things that make you feel the most loved and appreciated though nobody fits into just one box.
Let’s take my language for example:
Receiving Gifts: Don’t mistake this love language for materialism; the receiver of gifts thrives on the love, thoughtfulness, and effort behind the gift. If you speak this language, the perfect gift or gesture shows that you are known, you are cared for, and you are prized above whatever was sacrificed to bring the gift to you. A missed birthday, anniversary, or a hasty, thoughtless gift would be disastrous–so would the absence of everyday gestures.
When I first read this, I was taken aback because it was pretty fabulous definition of me and how I look at things. It got me to read the book and I had to admit that it was a ginormous best seller for a reason. It was compelling, simple, well organized and pretty spot on.
Perfect, even.
The thing that stops it from being genius?
They haven’t figured out a way to get my husband to want to read it and/or implement it.
:)
So, what about you? Do you have a love language
Stumble it!
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