Post Birthday 2011

I got my last birthday present yesterday. It was something that was ordered but couldn’t be delivered to the store until then. Unfortunately my husband decided to make it a mystery gift, wouldn’t tell me what it was, had nothing but a mystery coupon about it in my card … so nothing to “open” or make it a surprise that was a good thing.

For me I DO NOT like strung out things, leading on, shocking me on purpose, etc.

I like a good surprise, a pleasant surprise, but not one that is hinted at, teased, dragged out.

I could recount many stories of these sorts of things, with a couple being big time bad things in how they make me feel, whether good or bad on the other side. No bad surprise is a good thing, and it’s usually, IRL something that happens all of the sudden … well, guess what? Good surprises are like that too, or should be. Otherwise they are not surprises, but something expected, whether or not it’s a totally known entity.

The way my personality is, I’m not going to live up to a gifters expectation in how I react when some drawn out thing finally culminates…

…Which happened yesterday. I got an HTC EVO View 4G tablet. I love it. Don’t expect a video of my reaction, or a recounting of how excited I was. I wasn’t. It was just “time for it” and a “thank you very much, leave me alone, get on with it, let me leave with it” kind of thing.

For me, receiving gifts is my main “love language” — packaging is important. Unveiling important. That means, good gift (great!) but it’s not like a giant greatly wrapped with pretty paper and bow box to open, if so, then, it’s this: “thanks”

If it’s presented wonderfully, with a lovely thing to open to take out said good gift, :”AWESOME!” “Thank you!!!” etc.

My emotive external-ness is dependent on the process, or lack thereof, depending on circumstances. Up to birthday, expectation, secrets, air ripe with promise, just like Christmas … that’s OK. Day of, lovely pkg to unwrap is phenomenal.

I just don’t wish to go into the other versions of this, the negative ones.

I think my husband would like the lead-on’s for his own-self –so in the coming days I’ll try that and see if he likes it. Well, maybe. I mean, it’s not a strongsuit of mine. His birthday is over a week past, so …it’s not an easy task.

I mean planning and making it a thing to bring life to a beast of an expectation on one side or the other … but string it along … something mean on the end, or something good, doesn’t matter. It all FEELS the same. At least to me it does.

OK, back in the days of yore I was about 8 or 9 and it was Christmas morning. My Dad was a prankster a-times, and this morning he used that ability quite meanly. He was the distributor of gifts. So he picked up one and tossed it to a sister of mine (who was in on it) and she didn’t catch it, but let it fall. “Crash” They made a big deal out of it and blah, blah, blah on it went until they gave it to me, shaking it well beforehand, so that when I opened it up there was a dust/dirt cloud when I opened it, broken glass … it was a canister, with a special label made for it stating “Murphy’s Soup” … which was a horrible name they called me sometimes (my name was “Mary Sue” back then, so they thought it funny, me being the youngest, the brunt of every joke, awful.)

It was a devistating time for me. I lost faith in family for sure at that point.

Years later, reading about Love Languages, I understood myself much better by then and that information helped me even more … things like what happened at that young Christmas are not forgettable, but put away-able. They haunt me, but only because they were horrible, intentional, and didn’t shape my “receiving gifts” love language, only accent to me how real it was and still is, never changing, always the same. I appreciate beauty and decency. Gifts are that.

Sarcasm and such is for other times. Amen.

So … I do like my gift this year, I wanted it anyhow, it was a known entity to me and something I know he knew I knew about. I guessed it was what was what. But never said what I really thought. I wish I had forced the issue on my birthday, then it’d be a glad thing instead of something that just kept going trying to fool me to the end. I am not ranting or complaining, only stating the status of my birthday, the status of my feelings, the status of which takes more than 140 characters to say. It is nothing more than a Status though. Plain and simple.