Love and gratitude

And now the post I thought I would be writing last week and didn't.

My mom taught me to write thank you notes. I sent thank you notes each year to my grandpas for the birthday and Christmas gifts they gave. I wrote thank you notes to people who did nice things for me. We made sure we hand wrote personal thank you notes after our wedding. I was still getting over a hand injury from earlier in the year so I could only do five or so at a time before my hand hurt too much, but I'd do five a day till mine were all done.

I sincerely hope that hand written thank yous never disappear. Although the fact that someone thought our thank you note sent a month after the wedding was a pregnancy announcement probably says something. I never got a thank you note from that person after their wedding two years earlier either.

The first of January I was reading "The Art of Manliness" and there was a post about making a resolution to write a romantic love note to your significant other every week for a year - A Resolution for Romance: The 52 Love Notes Challenge. And I thought to myself, "self, you can do that." And I have. And it's fun, especially finding new places to hide them. And especially when I get notes back.

Except here's the problem. My love notes keep coming out like thank you notes. Thank you for your love. Thank you for the way you look at me. Thank you for always sorting the laundry. Thank you for the beautiful surprise that you are in my life.

But is that really a problem? Isn't expressing gratitude just another way to express love? Thank you notes and love notes often express the same thing, just in different forms.

The world needs more love/gratitude notes. Find someone this week you can write a note to.

Thank you dear internet for giving me a place to share my thoughts. Thank you for sharing yours with me.