Written by Michelle Robinson
I’m excited about this month’s column, and I hope the title sparked your curiosity.
While there are many directions that a discussion of getting creative with love could take, I’m sticking to the shallow end of the pool and offering some ideas that won’t take you or me out of our depths.
It is popular today to quote the cliché, ‘don’t sweat the small stuff’.’
While I agree this advice is handy for ignoring minor irritations, I think it’s inaccurate when applied to love. In fact, I suggest it is the ‘small stuff’ that has the power to keep the flame of love burning, long past the passion of early romance.
We just need to get creative about how we make that happen.
The easiest way for me to illustrate my point is to tell you about my brother, Garth.
Garth doesn’t realize that he’s a very special person.
Being creative about expressing his love just seems to come naturally. After 30 years of marriage, his wife Kaye, still finds little notes hidden in her lunch to remind her she is loved.
Garth likes to add the element of surprise to any occasion.
A few years ago, he booked a lovely restaurant followed by a night away from home.
Rather than ruin the surprise, he took it upon himself to go into Kaye’s wardrobe and select her entire outfit, as well as everything he thought she might need for their adventure.
These items were cleverly concealed in his car. He constructed a ruse about why Kaye didn’t need her car at work that day, and at 4.30pm she was whisked away to a romantic evening, without the need to plan a thing.
I could go on and on about my brother’s expressions of love, but I will conclude by adding that I have not been forgotten.
One Mother’s Day, when I was going through a difficult time, he arrived on his motorbike with a flask of tea and packet of biscuits in a backpack.
I was instructed to get on the back of the bike and taken along bush tracks to a place we often visited in childhood.
Once there, we shared a simple morning tea and talked about life. It is one of my most precious memories.
It is the small stuff that keeps love alive. Annual gestures like roses on Valentine’s Day are fine, but if the space between gestures is empty and feelings are hollow, then love may be extinguished in a silence that no-one noticed.
Being creative with love does not need money spent on gifts. It does not need eloquent words or stressful planning. It just requires that two people prioritise their relationship enough to keep the flame of love burning.
It just takes the effort of being proactive because you care about someone. How that happens is entirely up to you.
For me, a cup of tea and the offer of time with my brother, meant the world, the day I was ordered to ‘get on the bike’.
What would it take for you, to show someone that you love them? Few of us need the ‘big stuff.’
ost of us are content with the small but regular messages of affection that keep the heart of our love still beating.
Until next time, Blessings
Michelle