Skip to main content

Lessons From Cupcakes

DB bought me a super soft throw a few days before Valentines Day. He does not care for surprises and is bad at keeping them. I got my gift ahead of time and liked it better that way - the de rigeur lovefest of February 14th is not my thing at all. Now that I had been given a gift for to mark the occasion and the first one since our marriage, I felt compelled to reciprocate. 
Knowing that he has a sweet tooth, I had in mind a couple of super fancy cupcakes from a cupcake boutique that is new to our neck of the woods. They are as decadent as they are gorgeous. Apparently everyone else in town was thinking just like I was. I decide to swing by after work, pick up what I liked and head home in time for it to be a surprise. Sadly for me, they had a note posted on their door apologizing for being out of cupcakes. Had I ordered ahead, I could have picked up as many were doing. 
For someone who does not believe in Valentines Day or the celebrations that go along with it, I was extremely anxious to pick up something that was close to what I had intended. Rescue came in the form of ice cream cupcakes from another store down the road. Though not nearly as exclusive as the offerings of the cupcake boutique, they were good enough. 
I felt strangely wistful driving home. DB takes the time and energy to think about what he could do different or better in our relationship. Him going out a few days ahead to pick out the perfect gift for me is one of many examples. I try to do as much as I can in as little time as possible - often without a lot of planning. 
In the many years that he was single before we met, he cultivated qualities that enhance him as a person and a partner. For my part, I focused on running a tight ship - with parenting, career, finances and yes even the tentative forays into relationships. I have possibly regressed on the interpersonal and relationship aspects in the last decade. 
Now that we are married, the difference in our personal growth over this period of time manifests itself in big and small ways all the time. 
The failed attempt to secure bespoke cupcakes on Valentines Day is a small but telling example. Each time something like this happens, I think to myself "I did not used to be this way before" Before - a long time ago, before my first marriage or until my divorce. I would plan just as meticulously as DB does. I had an abundance of imagination and creativity - I used to do the things DB does for me for my R (my ex) - a man who most decidedly did not deserve that generosity.
I want nothing more than to restore those traits that have gone dormant in me to the point that I forget they ever existed. I want to be fair to DB - be able to give to him like he gives to me.

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Anya said…
It's the thought that matters?
5:53 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Part Liberated Woman

An expat desi friend and I were discussing what it means to return to India when you have cobbled together a life in a foreign country no matter how flawed and imperfect. We have both spent over a decade outside India and have kids who were born abroad and have spent very little time back home. Returning "home" is something a lot of new immigrants like L and myself think about. We want very much for that to be an option because a full assimilation into our country of domicile is likely never going to happen. L has visited India more often than I have and has a much better pulse on what's going on there. For me the strongest drag force working against my desire to return home is my experience of life as a woman in India. I neither want to live that suffocatingly sheltered existence myself nor subject J to it. The freedom, independence and safety I have had in here in suburban America was not even something I knew I could expect to have in India. I never knew what it felt t...
111 comments
Read more

Under Advisement

Recently a desi dude who is more acquaintance less friend called to check in on me. Those who have read this blog before might know that such calls tend to make me anxious. Depending on how far back we go, there are sets of FAQs that I brace myself to answer. The trick is to be sufficiently evasive without being downright offensive - a fine balancing act given the provocative nature of questions involved. I look at these calls as opportunities for building patience and tolerance both of which I seriously lack. Basically, they are very desirous of finding out how I am doing in my personal and professional life to be sure that they have me correctly categorized and filed for future reference. The major buckets appear to be loser, struggling, average, arrived, superstar and uncategorizable. My goal needless to say, is to be in the last bucket - the unknown, unquantifiable and therefore uninteresting entity. Their aim is to pull me into something more tangible. So anyways, the dude in ques...
6 comments
Read more

Carefree Wandering

There are these lines in Paul Cohelo's Alchemist that I love about the shepherd turning a year later to sell wool and being unsure if he would meet the girl there But in his heart he knew that it did matter. And he knew that shepherds, like seamen and like traveling salesmen, always found a town where there was someone who could make them forget the joys of carefree wandering. What is true of the the power of love and making a person want to settle is also true of  finding purpose in life. If and when a person is able to connect their work to purpose they care about, the desire for change disappears. They are able to instead channel that energy into enhancing the quality of the work they are already doing. As I write this, I remember S a brand manager I used to know a couple of decades ago. He worked for a company that made products for senior citizens, I was a consultant there. S was responsible for creating awareness of their new products and building awareness of what already ex...
Post a Comment
Read more