A Valentine’s Gift to Yourself - Grace

A friend of mine bought me flowers this weekend. A dozen roses, actually – a beautiful box of gorgeous red flowers, wrapped with babies breath and tissue paper. She bought them because my husband was recuperating from surgery and she wanted to make sure I had a gift for today. It was a kind and thoughtful gift.
However, when I first saw the gift, my initial reaction was “Oh crap.” Not because there were thorns. There weren’t any. Not because I’m allergic to flowers – I’m not. Not even because I don’t love roses. I do. But because I have not been as thoughtful a friend as she has been to me. She is a stay at home mom with five kids and I rarely make time to see her, it can take me days to return her calls, and I never would have thought to give her a gift if her husband were incapacitated this weekend.
In a matter of moments, I had taken this extraordinary gesture of love and turned it into a symbol of my inadequacy as a friend and neighbor.

And I realized how often I do that. I look back so easily and catalog all of the ways I should have done something differently. I did the same thing when I was trying to get pregnant. What if I’d started earlier (my eggs weren’t getting any younger), not used that form of birth control (I should have known Depo wasn’t the best option), not gotten so mad at that person (after all, stress inhibits fertility)…and so on.

This Valentine’s Day, give some love to your sweetie if you’ve got one, but more importantly, give some love to yourself. Let go of the past mistakes and love yourself for where and who you are right this very minute.