Written By: Lauren Howard
Do the inconvenient thing.
You know what I mean.
The thing that would make someone you love really, really happy, but it’s just out of the way enough that it requires thought and planning. The thing that would break up your routine and make you a little uncomfortable, just enough that people would understand if you passed.
No one would be mad if you couldn’t make it. After all, we all have things.
You would have to pause your things long enough to focus only on someone else’s things. That means something.
Not big stuff, like planning a party or cooking a feast, but the little thing where showing up means more than anything else you could have done.
I am the queen of cop-outs, especially if it requires hard pants and being social. I hate both things.
But someone I love a lot was in a play, and she had zero expectations that I was going to go. She knows about the pants and the leaving the house stuff.
So, when she came out to greet her public after the final curtain, she was absolutely shocked to see her bestie, who doesn’t leave the house, standing there.
The look on her face was as much a gift to me as this was to her.
I didn’t tell her I was coming because life gets in the way sometimes, but I knew I wouldn’t miss it.
And now she knows that she means enough to me that I will put on hard pants for her. She knew that before, but now she has incontrovertible proof.
It was worth the planning, the confirming child care, and knowing that the dog was definitely going to have made a mess when I got home.
Showing people you love them means a whole lot more than saying it. As someone who will look for any excuse not to break her routine, I’m so glad I did.
Founder & CEO at elletwo
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