We all know the scenario as our cultural stereotyping tells it. “Dense” husband forgets wife’s birthday. Wife fumes, goes on social media, and gathers an army of people who will confirm for her that man is, in fact, dense. Husband fights ought of the doghouse with roses, a spa package, and at least one run of cleaning the entire house. Variations of the sequence been written on the stone tablets of more than one sitcom.
Except wives can be dense, too.
(Or at least, close.)
This year, life has been particularly trying, even more so than when we went through the pandemic. Few things have been celebrated, and most parts of what we’ve had to do have gotten done only through scramble. The load has been heavy, and we’re only now starting to carry a few less bricks.
So, perhaps I might get a little grace for looking at the calendar, realizing my husband’s birthday was less than a week away, and thinking, “Crap.”
It’s not a complete disaster. I still have enough time to give my husband a good day, as I can testify he more than deserves. (I can even blog about it.) But it’s been a reminder of how I want celebrations to be — not cake and confetti, packaged in obligation and squeezed into life, but moments where people can truly slow down, appreciate each other and what they have, and show care until it feels like “enough.”
Admittedly, though, that’s my idealist talking. I’m still learning to make celebrations a thing at all. Many of the biggest moments in my life that ought to have been celebrated weren’t. That’s not so much a relation of woe as it is an admission that I am still building familiarity. But it means there’s a part of me that has to give myself a pep talk to whip up some frosting. And I’m guessing that there are others out there who go into celebration lukewarm, too.
Do you value celebration in your life, or are you a lukewarm celebrator like me? How and what do you celebrate? Let me know in the comments.