Being Grateful: Always in Style

It is better to want what you have than to have what you want.–Proverb quote

Oh man, have you ever just gotten a big dose of humility dropped in your lap with a reminder that you need to be thankful and appreciative for the things in your life?  Well, hello everyone, I am on the receiving end of that today!

It all started with Valentine’s Day and what I’m calling “The Gift Incident”.  Have you ever worked so hard on a gift that you just KNOW you’ve nailed it?  Well, for the BF’s gift I nailed it, people. It was funny and sweet and loving and thoughtful and all packaged up and shipped to his doorstep right on February 14th.  I was very proud.

My BF on the other hand, thought Valentine’s Day was a week away, is far away in training, and frantically tried to send me something, knowing it would be a bit late, and trying very hard to do something good for the holiday in a short time frame. So when I received a huge Tiffany’s box on my doorstep, oh my goodness, imagine my excitement!  A huge blue box?! How much jewelry could be in it?  How beautiful were these jewels going to BE?!?!?!?!?  I opened, with excited trepidation, and held my breath…

People, it wasn’t jewels.

It was a beautiful, ridiculously expensive….travel makeup bag.  Oh my.  My heart kind of sunk and I just stood there thinking, “For Valentine’s Day…I got a makeup bag.”  I was pretty confused, then kind of sad, then just….really sad.  This is what our relationship is?  THIS is what the most romantic holiday of the year brought me? Oh, the comedown was hard and fast, my friends.  Hard and fast.  I spent the night pretty upset (after, of course repeatedly telling him how much I loved it) and feeling really unloved and unlucky and unhappy.

The next day the BF sent me a message saying he was feeling awful that my gift to him was so much effort and so much more romantic, and he just knew that he’d missed the mark.  I assured him no gift is bad, and that I was so happy.  But…I was lying. I pouted all morning and cracked jokes with my friends when really, I was upset.

And then, my cousin yelled at me.  She said that travel accessories, for someone who travels all the time, are amazingly thoughtful.  She pointed out that I love Tiffany’s, and she reminded me he had to scramble to get something shipped in one day.  I started thinking about this….

The my good friend Heidi told me I need to be grateful that a man, who cares about me, is sending me boxes at all.  Period.  That I received a Valentine’s Day gift, from 3,000 miles away, and it was from my favorite store.  This got me feeling slightly bad…

Then my wonderful friend David said that for a man, who is not very experienced in women’s gifts and romantic holidays, to send something that is useful for me, from Tiffany’s, will make my travel easier, and did it all in one day, is a pretty fantastic guy.  This got me eating that huge piece of humility.

What kind of brat am I?!  Just who do I think I am?  My boyfriend does many things for me, and he sent me a lovely gift that millions of girls would probably jump for joy over–as I should have been doing!  I was not raised to be ungrateful or unappreciative of other people’s efforts, and he was generous and thoughtful in his gift.  And even if he wasn’t, a gift is a gift, and always something to be thankful for!

So, today, I’ve decided that I will swallow my brattiness, behave like the grateful person I should always be, and carry my new bag everywhere.  Grateful looks good on everyone.  I need to put mine back on and get it’s shape back.

xoxoxo