Shrugging Your Shoulders Feels Reckless When The Stakes Are High

We need to be more forgiving to our hapless, bungling attempts to love one another. We don’t get to choose how other people see us. We don’t get to determine what garish or misguided form their love takes. I’m guessing this tangled sadness of failed efforts is part of adulthood. Some gifts lay embarrassingly bare the dissonance between our friend/family’s outdated or delusional perception of us. In a twisted way, it is a hint of the regrettable reality of us.

Buying or making something for someone is intimate. It is almost like a kind of proxy in replacement of physical intimacy, a way of touching you through the transitive property. But when it comes to getting a gift, it is not just an item. You have to get them — the receiver. The truth is some gifts are evidence of misplaced hopes or even ambitions of us. What is the perfect gift for yourself?