From The Heart

[comes_the_light]

I love giving presents. As a child, I can remember sitting on my mother's bed during the holiday season and watching her wrap what few gifts there were for my father and brothers. The colored papers, the bows, the curly ribbon. My mother could have worked as a gift wrapper in the department stores. Her edges were crisp and perfect. The bows centered. The curly ribbon all the same size and equally curled. Anytime there were other gifts under the tree from relatives, one could always tell which ones my mother had wrapped.

Growing up, there were no gift cards. No money envelopes. There were presents. Actual items my mother had spent hours envisioning in her mind and then sought out over time, only to put in the top of the closet to wait their special day.

As I got older and started to earn my own money, I took equal pride in giving gifts to others. I'm not nearly the wrapper my mother is, and so I compensate by making the thing inside the box, the most perfect thing I can think of for that person.

I am giving a gift today. It has been waiting for many months in the back of my closet, still in the shopping bag. But this morning it is coming out and I have envisioned the person's reaction to it in my mind a thousand times.

It is perfect and completely unexpected.

I think the perfect gift should reflect the person it's given to. Sometimes that thing can be found in a store, others times it can't be. But if the gift is carefully chosen and considered, the likelihood of the gift being kept and used is greater I think.

I hate when I hear people say, "oh, I have to pick up something for so and so today. I guess I'll run to the mall after work and look around."

I hope no one ever has to look around for me.

Anyone who knows me should be able to determine exactly what I would like. My favorite colors, my favorite books, my favorite social events.

Many years ago I started to get myself a birthday present. I've taken myself on a Carribean cruise, swam with dolphins, gone cave tubing in Belize, traveled to Europe, driven to other states to see friends, gone to Disney World, seen Broadway shows and gone camping with some of the dearest people in my life. (There were aligators in our lake, but that's another story!)

None of these things could be wrapped or taken back.

But they were carefully chosen and considered.

Do I have expensive taste?

No. I plan each year what I want for my birthday and save many months and work a ton of extra hours to make that dream a reality.

This year? I'm off to Boston. I'm speaking at Harvard in June and am taking that opportunity to see a part of this country I've never visited.

Many years ago someone told me that travel was amazing because you were paying for the memories.

I agree with that.

My life is not cluttered with a lot of souvenirs or trinkets. But I have many pictures that adorn my walls that remind me of where I've been and how far I've come. I can look at myself in those pictures and think, "that was the last trip I took with my husband" or "that was the first trip I took after I stopped injuring" or "that was the first time in more than a decade that I could wear a bikini and not feel self-conscious about my scars."

My gifts to myself have become a legacy of sorts.

I hope the person that receives my gift today knows how much time I spent thinking about who they are as a person. I hope that my gift reflects how much I value them in my life and that somehow, someway, I was able to express my heart completely in the card.

I woke up today and that in and of itself is a gift. Life isn't about giving or receiving presents, but as luck would have it, I have one to give away today.

I hope the person that receives it gets as much joy from opening it as I did thinking about it, looking for it and wrapping it.

It is a gift given from the heart. And today, my heart is overflowing with happiness.