What I Learned About Myself This Week, or Flowers

I'm not sure it's been covered here- but I'm sort of an emotional person. By sort of I mean I choke up when I read "Dear Tati," in cards from Weston. Olivia has walked in on me many a morning wondering why I'm sobbing and it's always a commercial. I feel hurts greatly and I am careful to protect myself. I generally like to consider myself low maintenance (pause here for ex boyfriends to laugh), so when I ask for something from my partner it sometimes makes me feel very vulnerable.

Andrey and I have been together for three Valentine's days now and every year I panic he will forget a card and I will have to be so upset with him because all I want and asked for is a card and flowers. And he's never forgotten. And he's always knocked the card and flowers out of the park. But I'm always anxious he will forget and I'll have to then talk about how it's not okay. And I hate that. Because I prefer when things are okay, because I'm emotional and also lazy and would rather watch House of Cards than talk about my feelings (yes, believe it or not Andrey and ex-boyfriends).

In an attempt to make things easy on Andrey and not martyr myself we came up with our Valentine's Day protocol:

• Cards
• No gifts (our anniversary is a month from Valentine's Day and Andrey's birthday is February 18, so this is more for me than for him)
• Flowers, sent to my house so Andrey doesn't have to carry them around all night. And so I don't have to haul them home. 2 years ago Andrey came to me with a slight problem- he wanted to buy me flowers more but he had no idea what to get, he was totally overwhelmed by the selection. So I made him a pinterest board. People have called this high maintenance- but I think it's incredibly practical.
• Chocolate, if Andrey can find any I can actually eat.

Last year Andrey got me a beautiful bouquet but I was saddened by the fact that we went away the day after Valentine's and I missed the beautiful alive days of my flowers. This year I instructed Andrey forget the flowers ON Valentine's Day because we we're driving to Vermont on Valentine's Day. And I didn't want to miss my flowers. We had planned to celebrate Valentine's Day on Thursday the 13th but due to inclement weather (this lovely endless Winter) we cancelled our plans and I was just thrilled when I saw him step off the train.

After a long weekend in Vermont with great friends and a lovely short week the last thing on my mind was flowers. I wasn't worried if Andrey was going to forget, I wasn't giving him sweet, subtle "reminders" (nags). I just wasn't thinking about it at all.

So when Andrey got in the car last night with a gorgeous bouquet of roses and lilies and I don't even know what else because I'm not good with knowing flowers just loving them- I was shocked and touched and tickled.

I finally gave over, I forgot. I let life happen. I trust Andrey for everything, I trust him with my life and my heart. It's scary to trust someone to not disappoint you. Sometimes those smaller things.. well others have burned me and I still get anxious about being hurt again.

But maybe the love of a good man can turn that around. That and flowers. Also, chocolate.