Choosing to receive love

I love my facial moisturizer... Olay Total Effects. I like the 'regular' one - not tinted, unscented, with SPF, blemish-control or any other version. Just the base-line regular version. It's a great product (which I also know is technically true since I worked in P&G Beauty Care Marketing for so long), and I LOVE the scent of it.

So why am I telling you this?

Well, about 2 weeks ago I put it on my shopping list, but Bill went to the store. I explained thoroughly about which product it was, but I knew that once you get in that aisle it gets pretty confusing with about 19 different versions of the same product. I didn't hold out much hope. And I was right - he came home with (gasp!) unscented. I looked for the receipt to return it, but we'd already thrown it out. Bill told me he was sorry he got the wrong product and I wrestled with whether or not to go back and beg an exchange (it IS about $16 bucks that I didn't want to waste).

It sat on the counter for a week until I finally thought who am I kidding? there's no way i'm ever going to make it back to the store to exchange that.

Then I remembered what Bill said when I told him it was the wrong thing: "Sorry babe - I just remembered you don't like strong scents on a lot of things, so I thought this would be the right one. I saw the one you're talking about but picked this instead."

My husband picked this out because he knows me. So what if he got it a little wrong? He actually stood in the aisle, thought about his wife and picked the one he thought was right because he KNOWS me. Isn't that what we wives want?! Our husbands to know us? To love us? To think of us at all times? He didn't pick this because he was being thoughtless, impatient or inattentive...he picked unscented because he KNOWS me. How was he to know that it just-so-happens this is one scent that I absolutely LOVE.

I went to Bill and told him - told him how much it meant to me that he did that, told him I felt loved and known by it. And then I decided to keep it and use it and remember to thank God everytime I put on my moisturizer for the next 6 weeks that I have a husband who wants to know me!