I love cards. I love to receive and to give them.I like the way that they help to give expression to my feelings and emotions. I have found them, especially the ones made by Hallmark Inc. to be worthy vehicles in transmitting my thoughts into words. I never throw away my cards and I can say that I have kept at least 80% of the cards Mr Aisi has given me through the years right from our courtship days. I tend to date my cards for they serve as landmarks to the state of my mind, emotions, feelings and our relationship as at the time they were given . I have given cards for every situation – when I am happy, sad, feeling the love and when I don’t, during and after a fight, when I am sorry and “just because”.
It’s Valentine’s Day in a couple of days and as I was looking at the various packages vendors were advertising for the season on social media, it struck me that apart from Teelonis a bespoke gift company which curates the most exquisite theme centered gifts, cards hardly feature anymore in our celebrations as against the norm some years back. Going through my stack of Valentine cards, I noticed that I had many of the Love is…… cards which were quite the rage in my teenage and early adult years.
A quick trip to Wikipedia and I discovered that the cards created by New Zealand cartoonist Kim Casali (née Grove) in the 1960s first featured as little comic strips. The cartoons originated from a series of love notes that Grove drew for her future husband, Roberto Casali. The cards, though brief in words, gave many cute but practical and apt definitions of love that seemed so obvious in theory especially when one’s head is in the clouds but were rather hard to practice when the chips were down.
“Love Is…being able to say you are sorry”
If anyone had told us that we would have difficulty in saying these three little words “I am sorry” to someone we loved we would have called them a liar but the inability to say those words has wreaked many a promising marriage. A lot of people who claim to love their significant other, often find it very difficult to say sorry even when they are truly sorry. Rather than mouth the words, they try to show their lovers that they are sorry for what they have done or said by buying gifts, doing things for them, etc.
I really can’t comprehend why it’s so difficult for many of us to say sorry when we hurt the person we love but I can proffer some reasons why we don’t. We may disagree but most times pride and fear are at the root of our hesitation. Pride because we have been told that saying sorry is a sign of weakness and fear because we believe that it gives the other party power over us.
But nothing could be further from the truth. Saying sorry is a show of courage for it takes strength to acknowledge that one is wrong, to put aside our egos and consider the part we have played in another’s unhappy state and to allow others to stand in judgment over our actions. Saying sorry shows that we are mature and self-aware, able to look at disputes dispassionately and apportion blame even to ourselves and it disarms the other party from further attacks. It is important to note however, that saying sorry does not absolve us from blame and is only effective when we stop the offending act otherwise our sorries may not amount to much and will become tiresome in the ears of our lover.
“Love Is…being thoughtful”
A survey was taken of people who had been married for longer than 25 years and were still besotted with one another and the common thread that all the couples recognised as playing a huge role in their lives together was thoughtfulness or tenderness. Thoughtfulness is defined as being considerate about the need of your significant other whilst tenderness means kindness or gentleness. If there is one thing love isn’t it is being selfish and callous and it’s bewildering that many who profess love treat their partners callously and are unmindful of their feelings. Being thoughtful focuses on the other person and not only ones self, it may mean doing things you don’t want to do or allowing your partner do what brings them joy without making them feel guilty. It is mostly expressed in the mundane things like running the hot water for her, taking out the trash, ensuring he has a clean set of briefs, cooking meals, providing for things that make life easier but it also touches on the emotional- knowing when to give them space, and when to hold them close and the spiritual – giving them the space to connect with or find God for themselves. Love is being thoughtful of our partner and at the same time loving ourselves.
“Love Is…remembering there’s more than one way of doing things”
We all have the tendency to think “our way” or “no way”and this line of thinking has destroyed many a marriage especially when one of the partners is a perfectionist. Most partners fail to acknowledge that they have different backgrounds, have been exposed to different ways of doing the same thing and that their way is merely the preferred way and not the only way. The truth is that there are many ways to achieving the same goals in life if we accept them and our ways may not necessarily be the right or best way. Most times we find out with the benefit of hindsight that the method we employ in achieving our common goals may not really matter in the end so far the goals are achieved. In my opinion, the Biblical phrase that states “two cannot walk together except they agree” is more emphatic on the agreement rather than “the walking”
“Love Is…fighting and patching things up”
Conflicts are multifaceted in that, they can either be a sign of a good thing or a bad thing. It depends on the frequency, subject matter of the conflict and the reactions of the parties. The truth about all relationships is that conflicts will arise but love is all about patching up. A lot of us believe that arguing or the avoidance of discussing sensitive issues will save our relationships but the truth is that when we fail to discuss issues, rather preferring to let them slide , we hurt our relationships more and harbor resentment against the other party which will one day burst through our calm exterior like a volcanic eruption. The truth is that Love can withstand both a total interior makeover and an external patchwork when conflicts are handled rightly and research as shown that couples who argue together are 10times more likely to stay together than couples who don’t argue.
“Love Is…knowing both parties are not perfect”.
Although we parrot the saying that no one is perfect, we tend to expect perfection from our significant other and hold them to a higher standard than we hold ourselves even as we excuse our shortcomings. Love is able to recognise and accommodate the other’s shortcoming, being accepting of the fact that we are imperfect and as such react to situations differently. The inability to accept my partner’s imperfections and focus more on the areas that he was perfect in, is, I believe my greatest undoing in my marriage and with the benefit of hindsight I have admitted though grudgingly , that I could have lived with some of Mr Aisi ‘s imperfections if only I had always remembered that like me he was just human.
It’s the season of love, a time to love and be loved, as we celebrate love, let’s be aware of what it is and what it is not and let’s not be carried away by all we see that people tend to make it be, the things that make for a loving relationship are really the simple and mundane.
Happy Valentine’s Day.