Hats Off {Please!}

My birthday is right around the corner. On Monday. So, with 30 rapidly approaching, I've been thinking about some of my past birthdays. Because of where my big day falls, there have been many years where I've spent my birthday at the first day of school, or the first volleyball game of the season {lucky for me I love both, so it was okay}. The worst one I remember was my 15th birthday. We had just moved to Alpine. I was brand new at a new-to-me high school, and it was the first day. That one was not too much fun. I was missing all of my Heber besties and thinking about how much fun we would have had and it was only making it worse. But, when I came home there were wontons waiting for me so it was all good.

It's flashback Friday. I thought about all the birthdays I could flash back to, and thinking about this one caused laughter. So I decided to share it. It was ten years ago. I was turning 20. I had just been married the month before. And this was big because it was my first birthday with Shane. And birthdays were always supposed to be better when you had a boyfriend/crush/husband. I was just sure that it was going to be great {and the girlish crush still inside of me had an optimistic amount of confidence in him}. We didn't have alot of money, but that didn't matter. He didn't need to spend much to make me happy. So, the big day came and he was all excited to give me my present. He had done his best to wrap it--something that he still has never gotten better at but it's okay. I was so excited to open it and realize that I had married the perfect birthday guy. So I ripped it open and there it was--an Abercrombie and Fitch hat. A hat. Yep, a hat. I almost started sobbing right then and there, but I tried my best to act like I loved it. But he could tell I didn't. My face must have showed all the emotions I was feeling. Like how much I hate hats. And that I had never, ever worn a hat--so why in the world would he pick that for ME. And that I felt like my new husband didn't know me, AT ALL. And that I felt like there had been little effort or thought put into the first birthday gift he had ever gotten me--so that meant that he didn't really love me, right? And that I was imagining all of my future birthday/anniversary/Christmas celebrations being major let-downs. And that we didn't have very much money and he had just wasted some of it on something stupid.

He started apologizing and saying that he knew I wasn't going to like it {he was lying, but it counts because he was trying to make me feel better}. He had taken advice from someone that didn't know me and he shouldn't have. So, I forgave him, and I wore the hat. Just to be nice. We took a picture of us wearing our hats. So we would never forget the hat. And then I got rid of the hat. Quickly. And it was over. And no therapy was needed--for either of us.

And in Shane's defense, he is now a great gift giver, especially when I tell him exactly what I want.