Happy VD!

Two weeks ago...

What we said out loud

Me: I think we should do Valentine's Day this year.

Matt: Okay.

What was really said

Me: Even after thirteen years together I like to keep you guessing.  Good luck with pulling this one off, buddy!

Matt: She can't be serious???  Well, that's great.  Guess I'm screwed...and I actually enjoyed being married for a while...

There have been a few reasons for not really celebrating holidays like Valentine's Day or our anniversary before.  And they're all my reasons.  As most of you know by now our inner personalities reflect very stereotypical dude/chick qualities.  Only I'm the dude.  Matt is definitely the more romantical one. 

He's the one who used to leave little notes saying how much he loves me for no real reason other than it was a day that ends in a 'y'.  He wants to hug me in the middle of the living room for absolutely no reason whatsoever on a Tuesday at 8:46 PM.  Whereas I rarely remember our anniversary or little things like wearing my wedding ring out in public sometimes.  He wanted "Into the Mystic" as the last song at our wedding, I wanted to be introduced to "Welcome to the Jungle".  Yeah, it’s like that.

I truly felt that if he wanted to give me a present he didn't need the freaking Hallmark Corporation telling him what day I was supposed to get it.  We're supposed to love each other enough to give fattening, expensive, high-pressure gifts all year long right?  It probably sounds like a cop out but I love him every day, he loves me every day.  We don't need to participate in the world's biggest "I don't know what to do but I have to do something so here's this heart shaped locket you've never mentioned you like" holiday to prove our love. 

So what the hell was going on with me two weeks ago?

Well, all kinds of stuff lately has just been swimming around and I caught a little bit of a romantic bug.  It kind of hit me how I used to be super gooey and squishy back in high school when I started pulling out old journals to work on my current zine series.  Jenn ♥'s ________ is all over the place.  No, seriously, like ALL over the place.  Sometimes I even crossed out the first guy and just re-wrote a new guy's name when I fell in love the next time.

"Yes its true what you have heard about me, I fall in love every time..." - Melissa Ferrick

To be fair, I'm not some cold bitch or anything.  No way I'm about to be evil to someone so openhearted, that's not my style!  I'm the one who grabs for his hand when we’re walking down the street; I like to surprise him too.

And surprise him I did two weeks ago with one little phrase about one little holiday.

I knew I wanted to do something kind of gag-gift related for him, but I wanted super squishy cards.  Our relationship isn't all about lace and frills (seriously, even he has limits, he's still a guy for goodness sake!) so there wouldn't be any of that going on.  I went out and picked up a bunch of hilarious stuff while he was in Texas at a work thing last week.

Not hilarious to the whole world type stuff though, everything was an in-joke between him and me type of gift.  I got him an Angry Birds fluffy pig, a pack of playing cards with trivia that have an image from "Saturday Night Fever" on them, and a travel mug that actually plays "Free Bird" through a tiny speaker in the bottom (among other stuff).  I knew he’d love everything because that’s just Matt. 

He cracked up at every single one of them.

Oh, yeah, and we exchanged last night.  Because that's another thing about me, I don't ever wait to open gifts.  Who knows what could happen in 5 minutes, 5 days, 5 months...if there's a gift in front of you why on Earth wouldn't you just go for it?!?

Matt waited until yesterday to go & buy my gift.  He couldn’t exactly be subtle about it or anything, as of this moment we only have a joint bank account and one car.  What was killing me though was that he wouldn’t even give a teeny hint what it was going to be.  On the way out the door we exchanged:

“It’s something you’d never expect from me.”

“Divorce papers?”

*Eye roll, kiss goodbye* “I love you, see you in a bit.”

“Drive safely, love you too.”

So then I was left alone to consider just what in the world he was going to get me.  Left alone for close to an hour.  Torture much?  I thought, maybe it would be a Kinect because we’ve been saying for a couple weeks how we should get one. 

But that just isn’t Matt’s style. 

But he said I wouldn’t expect it from him.

But even still, he wouldn’t get me electronics on VD.

When he got back my mind was spinning but also I couldn’t wait for him to open his gift.  Like I said, he loved them, and I was so happy he did.  And to be honest I was relieved that I’d suggested it then pulled off a totally successful Valentine’s Day for the first time in probably 8 or more years.  Again, like I said, I am in touch with my inner-guy-ness.  I was nervous.

Then it was time to open mine.  He handed me an envelope with “I love you :-)” on the front and I could feel it was a couple pieces of paper.

“Wow.  It really is divorce papers.”

*eye roll* “You’ll like it I promise.”

He didn’t get me a card but hand wrote me a super cute note that will go in my Matt’s notes over the years scrapbook and I unfolded the other piece of paper; the one that matched the cloudy looking yellow envelope.  All I saw was Divinity Tattoo.

My jaw dropped to the ground.  Suddenly, him saying in his note that there’s something I’ve been talking about doing for a long time but haven’t yet, made complete sense.  It was the best damn Valentine’s Day gift this girl ever could have received!

For a while now I’ve been carrying around a drawing that encompasses some very important stuff to me personally.  It is super rough and all but absolutely exactly what I want an actual Artist to recreate into something out of this world good for my first ever piece of body art.

“Wow buddy, you’re brave.  Cause really, nothing says Valentine’s Day like buying your wife some pain.” – Chick in the tattoo shop

I can’t freaking wait.