Apparently today is a day. I checked.
For Her
Nobody marks this one, which means you were not expecting anything, which is exactly why I wanted to do it.
Why I am doing this
You were not expecting anything today.
That is the whole reason. On birthdays and anniversaries there is a bar, and meeting it barely registers. Today there is no bar at all.
So anything I do lands. Which felt like a good deal, and also slightly like cheating.
Not how you make me feel. What you are like.
Most of what people say about their partners is really about themselves — how the other person makes them feel. That is fine, but it is not a description of you.
So: you are the person who notices when someone has gone quiet in a group. You hold a grudge for about four minutes and then find it exhausting. You are competitive about things that do not matter and completely relaxed about things that do, which is either wisdom or luck and I have stopped trying to work out which.
You would be like this whether or not I was here to notice. That is what makes it worth saying.
Recent evidence
- Last week
You noticed before anyone else
Someone went quiet at the table and you were the only person who clocked it. You changed the subject so smoothly nobody else even registered it happening.
- The move
You carried the whole thing
Four days of logistics and you did not once make it anyone else’s emergency.
- Ongoing
The board game incident
Still not over it. Neither are you. This is why it is funny.
You, mostly mid-sentence
For you
The one that sounds like you
For the rest of the year
Their problem arrived long before you did. Do not take delivery of it.
You would not speak to anyone else the way you are currently speaking to you. Extend yourself the basic courtesy.
You notice people. Properly, in a way that costs you something. It is the rarest thing about you and you think it is nothing.
Come home, put it down, be unimpressive for an evening. Nobody is marking it.
Small ones
Nothing grand. Things I will actually do.
- 01To say why I did the thing, not just do the thing.
- 02To notice a hard week before you have to describe it.
- 03To find another obscure occasion, roughly monthly.
- 04To let you win the board game. Once. Under duress.
No occasion.
No expectation.
Just a Tuesday,
and the fact of you.
One more, hidden.
You are the only person I have never once had to explain myself to twice. I do not think you know that about yourself.
Since it is officially a day.
A small toast
Here’s to you, specifically.
- To a holiday nobody observes.
- To you noticing everyone, all the time, without being asked.
- To four-minute grudges.
- And to whatever obscure day I find next.
One more thing
Check the drawer.
The one you never open, on your side, second down.
It has been there four days. You have walked past it approximately forty times.
The thing I keep not saying
I am good at the day-to-day and bad at the summary. I will make you tea at the right moment and completely fail to tell you why I did it.
So, the summary: being with you is the least effortful thing in my life. Not in a boring way — in the way that a thing fits properly and you stop noticing it is there.
I notice. Today I am writing it down so that you do too.
— yours
A day nobody remembers,
an afternoon spent on this,
and one person
who was not expecting anything at all.
Good.
Happy Girlfriend’s Day.
I will find another obscure one next month.
made for you