Surprise Birthday Gift

My husband gave me my birthday present a day early. It is a viola. I played the viola for three years (in 5^th- 7^th grade) and I was awful. Truly, I wasn’t very good. I once made it all the way up to 2^nd chair. We were tested on California Girls, the Beach Boys song, and apparently everyone else must have been suffering from the flu, because I made it to the front. The ONLY time I made it to the front. Ever. Mainly because I never practiced, couldn’t figure out vibrato and I didn’t really care. Oh, and my teacher kept making me cut my nails, which always pissed me off…

I guess a couple years ago I had made a comment about how I wished that I could still play the viola. In the last year or so I had talked seriously about learning how to play the bass. This guy in my orchestra class in junior high played bass, and I had such a crush on him. It always looked cool and you got to play the bass guitar too!! I would love that. I even found a tutor and was going to  take lessons over the summer. This summer didn’t play out quite like I thought it was going to, so…anyways.

I get home from work last night and Jeff is so excited for me to open my gift. It came in weeks ago, before Christmas, and he has been waiting for the moment I can open it. I hear the click of the latches on the case and open my eyes…Apparently I didn’t have the right reaction because my dear, sweet, thoughtful husband was crushed. He was so excited about this gift and I ruined it. I am awful. I was surprised to see a viola in front of me on the bed. I had been talking about playing the bass, I was kind of confused but very touched. The look on my face however, must have just conveyed confused- not touched.

This is the great thing about my husband. He buys/gets/does things that I would never do, things I talk about but would never spend the time, energy or money on- like the viola. I would love to play again. I would talk about wanting to play, blog about wanting to learn again, and then I never would have the follow through to actually get the instrument. This is where Jeff excels. He is a “live in the moment” kind of guy. He has little patience and thrives on immediate gratification. He always tells me we can “worry about it later”. He gives me the freedom to do things that I would never do. He encourages me to splurge on the watch that I have been eying,  buys me the coat I have pinned on Pinterest. The coat I have NO business buying (a mom of two cannot ever wear a gorgeous white coat), but I love it. I didn’t think you could ever love a coat, but you can. He made me race super-fast go-karts, he made me take a last minute trip to California when I didn’t think we could ever find someone to watch the kids, he gets me a new NOOK because the screen on my old one (which I insisted was still fine) scratched up and secretly bothered the hell out of me. Jeff is good at making me stop calculating, stop planning, stop wishing, and just do it.

He reminds me a lot of my dad. My Dad would always tell me to “feel the fear and do it anyways.”  

Thank you, Jeff, for reminding me to DO IT, to stop over-thinking, stop questioning, stop stalling and just fucking do it already.

xoxo