What a woman moment. Most of us are so used to keeping home, husband, children, job, household and everything else up and running without so much as a "what about me?" to dot the day. Everything hinges on getting things done so that everyone is comfortable. Socks are where they should be – washed, folded or tucked the way each prefers. Carefully chosen, just-cooked meals are served on time, hopefully piping hot. Anything asked for on a whim is almost always readily available. We’re at everyone’s beck and call 24 by 7. I think of all the wives and mothers I know and realize our lives can be described in two words: putting out. Constantly.
Like Kate in the movie, who has spent her life paying her dues, we survive by building walls around our vulnerable areas. It’s the surest way to keep sane. The minute we feel pain or longing, we push it down just so we can get through the cocktails or the graduation, the raging fever, the family squabble or whatever it is we need to attend to next. We are so used to walking backwards to the end of the line so that everyone can live peacefully and happily. And so, when a little tenderness comes our way, we are taken aback, reduced to tears, shocked by the softness. Suddenly, we are reminded of that place in us that needs and wants – that place we keep shutting the door on.
I see this in a lot of women. Insult us, speak harshly of our inadequacies and we will take it. Run us through the mill, ask us to do a million things at once, invite your drinking buddies on our much-needed vacation alone and we will still strive to be radiant and witty through it all. Spend a fortune on a big boy toy you never use and complain that we can’t budget. Buy expensive jewelry, leave the receipt lying around so that when our birthday comes and we get a book, we will say thanks even as the bile rises steadily in our throats. Go ahead. What doesn’t kill us only makes us stronger. But throw us a kind word or gesture – something so simple, not given with any kind of fanfare, and we are renewed, alive, restored.
It cannot be faked. If it comes straight from the heart, we will know it. If it is used as atonement for ongoing or future sins, we will see it a hundred yards away and will harden our hearts to deflect the blow. It doesn’t even have to be a grand gesture. (Please, if you can’t cook, don’t take over the kitchen) It could be a sudden bear hug in the middle of the street, a pinch on the cheek, a gentle look in the eye – something so sincerely heartfelt – and suddenly we unfurl, open, blossom, are re-shaped and soft again.
I think about this now because it’s Valentine week and I saw the usual scurrying about for the most elaborate floral arrangement, expensive gift, romantic concert – the most extravagant show of love. Phones rang off the hook as men all over the country made sure their wives, lovers, and girlfriends were properly honored. I’m not saying it’s too much of a fuss over nothing. I just think these material offerings very rarely open a woman’s heart.
The truth is, you can forget all the other gifts. It is the authentic display of love and affection that gets us. These gestures, however few, are the ones that comfort us through the dark times when even that one glimmer of hope eludes us. It isn’t the diamonds you put around our necks or the yearly vacations on sun-drenched beaches. Where we’re all going, we can’t take any of that. But the warmth from that one moment when you showed us how grateful you were for our love – that split second of fearlessness when you thought nothing of exposing how much of us you held in your heart – that we will carry in our souls through eternity.
So, if you’ve bought your spouse the best gift money can buy but feel it did little to warm her heart, try a little tenderness. It doesn’t take much to make a woman happy. It’s a look, a touch, a fleeting moment where she feels truly seen, appreciated and respected not as a wife or mother, but as a woman – individual, special, precious, wholly irreplaceable.