Declarations of Love

Green is a fine color.  I like it, always have.  In my personal estimation of the vast color-plex it comes in above average, but is not my favorite.  My Christopher, on the other hand, is 100% committed to green and has held this single-minded and absolute preference since about age three.  Over the years with Christopher my wardrobe has evolved under the influence of this strong green bias.  At present a majority of my sweaters are green and those in the minority have been around longer than Christopher. Green is still merely a liked-but-not-favorite color for me, yet I gravitate towards it.  Part of me does this because I know the green shirt will make my Christopher a tiny bit happier when he sees me.  When he was hit by a car and in the ER last fall my biggest priority when going to pick him up was making sure I wore something green.  An even bigger motivation to my green bias, especially with the work clothes he almost never sees me in, is that wearing green makes me think of him as I go about my day.

Photo credit Chelsea Gale whose husband will hike ahead but leaves love notes along the way.   

Now let me rant about a certain type of commercial that is most annoying to me.  It is the jewelry or car commercial saying, "Prove your love by buying an expensive luxury item and the amount you spend correlates directly to the amount you love."  This is (to me) a waste of money that could go towards an extra mortgage payment (aka earlier financial freedom), spaying or neutering a massive colony of cats or any other number of things more worthwhile than a platinum charm bracelet or Lexus.  I realize this is a personal assessment of value, but overall I can't help seeing such gifts as a one time, uninspired act and therefore a cheap and generic way to show love.

Buying me some big diamonds would certainly cost a chunk of cash and likely require my Christopher to work harder and sacrifice in other areas - proof that he loves me!  But he leaves work on time and week after week after week (after week after week!) we have dinner together every night.  I'd guess we've shared dinner at least 2,500 times.  He also knows I like the blue plates better than the white ones so always gives me the blue plate. 

He'll also fold all the laundry when I'm not looking, waits a moment before leaving in the morning so we can share the first few minutes of our commutes, reminds me to take my vitamins and has a habit of asking what good thing happened today. These are subtle choices, tiny moments of tenderness and part of a persistent, unflagging habit of care and attention.  The blue plate is never going to register on anyone's newsfeed but it means a lot to me.