“Just get the hair dye. The one you want. Get it.”
***
“Put the candle you loved back in. Get it in your basket!”
***
(To the shop assistant in the bakery, after I’d admired a mini nutmeg grater with five nutmegs in a set, on the Christmas counter, whilst buying gifts for friends):
“And I’ll take another one of those mini nutmeg grater sets, please. Thanks.”
(Hands it to me.)
“There you go, hen. Enjoy.”
***
“Now once you’ve finished doing what you’re doing, you’re going to get yourself the fancy saucer, too.”
***
It took me years to realise my mother is a purveyor of all things ‘small joy’ and I’m beginning to wonder if this is where my over-the-top appreciation for everything in adulthood comes from.
It would make sense, of course, being that she’s my mum. She is also a purveyor of ‘simple things done right’. I’m growing to love this subtle characteristic I’ve noticed about her more and more as the years fly by.
The saucer example is typical in this newly-noticed behaviour. I’d have taken great care in making my mum a ‘good-coloured coffee’ in ‘just the right-sized cup’ (the special Guzzini teacup with the fancy bright red, Perspex saucer we got in a set as a wedding gift from my friend, Catriona.) I’d have laid out for her, the perfect-looking coffee and accoutrements, whilst haphazardly, slap-dash, chucking mine together in the matching Guzzini cup with a lot less care and attention, minus the saucer, letting it go cold slightly as I’d tended to something in the kitchen.
“And when you’ve finished in there, hen, you’ll get yourself the matching saucer, too.”
Just because it was right. I deserved the fancy-pants saucer. She was telling me in her own way: You’re worth it. Go into the display cabinet and get out the damn saucer for yourself as well.
A lesson in self-love right there.
So, where is your best cup and saucer? Is it lying, redundant-but-adored; in the Unused-Unless-You-Have-Visitors Cupboard? Go and get it now. Give it a wipe-down and slowwwwly make yourself a lovely drink of something warm and comforting. Take the time, for no other reason than… just because. Don’t have a special cup and saucer? Give yourself the gift of a random hour online to find one you absolutely love. Leave them hanging in several stores’ online shopping baskets… and then return and treat yourself to your favourite one. You think nothing of spending money on the kids or cleaning supplies or on gifts for family and friends. You deserve to feel all the loveliness from a gorgeous cup and saucer every day, and it will serve as a daily reminder that you are worthy and fully deserving of creating beauty and small joys around you.
Feeling good is the new everything.
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