“Have you read the 5 Love Languages?” Our pastor asked us at our very first pre-martial counseling session. After receiving what, at the time, seemed like great marriage advice, my fiancé and I left with an assignment to read the popular book and discover our love languages.
In news that surprised no one, my husband’s primary love language was Quality Time while mine was Gifts.
Gifts?
But, I’m not materialistic. At all. I want things, yes, but things that will improve my quality of life, not let you know how much I paid for them. Year after year, the test would yield the same results. Gifts my primary. Words of affirmation my secondary. And I would read justification after justification from fellow “gifts” people that their love language is gift giving. I know what they mean, sort of, but they fail to see that the language they speak is the language they understand. They love to give gifts because they know how good receiving one makes them feel. It’s okay, fellow gift people, despite what the internet thinks, you are not materialistic. In fact, you’re the most thoughtful of them all.
“I do like gifts, but I don’t care how much the gift costs. It’s the thought that counts!” is something I’ve said time and again in an attempt to justify my love language.
In my jewelry box, my most prized possession is not the emerald earrings my dad gave me or my Breathe bracelet, but a red, plastic ring with gold outlines in the shape of a butterfly. I would be sad if I lost the tanzanite ring my mom gave me on my 25th birthday, but I would be devastated to lose that bubble gum ring the man who knows me best gave me all those years ago. Back when I was a kid. A 19-year-old girl who didn’t think she deserved a guy who treated her so well, so she resorted to self-sabotage more than once. A 19-year-old girl who was so consumed with the evangelical church’s teaching on the “end times” she couldn’t imagine life on earth even being around by the year 2008, much less that I’d be giving birth to that man’s daughter that year. The boy who loved so big but had been hurt so much, mainly because of how big he loved, saw something in me, a girl who grew up among generational poverty in South Louisiana; a girl who, by all accounts, should not have been preparing for her first semester in college and instead preparing for motherhood or a life of addiction. He hasn’t always loved me perfectly, but he’s the only person to love me for me. For the longest time, he was the only one who knew me.
The people who knew me most, starting with my own parents, didn’t love me very well. I believe they did the best they could with what they had, but if we’re being honest, they didn’t have very much in terms of finances, maturity and education. Looking outward to my extended family, I realized early on that when I messed up, my relationship with the people I loved most got threatened. No one said this to me, but I got the message that I couldn’t be too me without losing people I loved.
Around Luis, I could be the most myself, even though I wasn’t fully myself with him because by that time, I wasn’t fully myself with me.
Knowing that he thought of me enough to get me a literal gumball ring because anytime we talked about marriage, if my engagement ring ever came up, I would tell Luis I didn’t care if it was a gumball ring if it came from him.
I don’t remember the details of the day he gave it to me, but I remember the feeling I had.
“He knows me best and still loves me enough to think of me when I’m not around.”
That’s what a gift is, you know. Not a present. A present is mandated gift giving, which is fine. I like that too. Giving and receiving presents can be fun. But presents are not gifts.
Gifts, as I define them, are physical tokens of thought. You might think of me because you know I’m having a hard time, so you make me something. You might love me because I’m your mom, so you give me flowers. You might appreciate the work I did for you, free of charge because I don’t value myself enough, so you send me a gift card. All those acts required you thinking of me.
I think of the people I love. They’re on my mind a lot. My kids, my husband, my family and friends. The people who I do life with, those I don’t see nearly enough, and those I am connected with only through my Mayor Pete twitter account take up space in my mind every day, with the most important people taking up the most space.
The more I think of someone, the more inclined I am to make or buy them a gift because I see something and think, “Oh, they’ll like that.” And I want them to have it. From my husband’s favorite Blueberry Kombucha to the only mint gum my friend Jaime isn’t allergic to, I make purchases with people I care about in mind. Even though the gift wasn’t for Jaime to keep, I hope it made her feel special that I thought of her enough to get a safe mint flavored gum in case I’m around her when I’m chewing it.
It’s never about the gift. It’s always the thought. The gift is the visual representation of the thought. It’s the thought come to life. Every time I see that red gumball ring, I am reminded of how long he has loved me.
I now realize the title of this post is inaccurate. Thought isn’t the 6th love language after all. Thought is the real language underneath the gift itself. I mean it from the bottom of my heart when I say, it’s the thought that counts.
My then boyfriend now husband of 14+ years showed me how much he thought of me with this gumball ring, and I would probably fight off a thief to keep it. Probably.
