I must admit, I am spoiled.
Spoiled by family, spoiled by friends, and even coworkers. I had a terribly wonderful birthday and definitely felt loved.

Garrett showered me with gifts, which was exactly what I told him not to do. I accepted everything graciously, of course... A funny thing about this story is that I always say that Garrett is a selective listener. Not to be confused with a good listener, because he's actually a great listener, but he is usually selective about what he will etch in his memory. When I rant, ramble or nag, he may or may not be listening. But when the topic warrants it, he is all ears.

Which brings me to this. He got me something for my birthday that was completely unexpected.
A few weeks ago we were out shopping and I saw a particular gadget-- if you will, and ended up playing with it for about 15 minutes at the store, only soon after to declare that I really wanted one. Being fairly expensive, Garrett laughed, and acted like he would never consider purchasing one, let alone for someone else. I had mentioned a few days later that I was thinking about buying one for myself. I kept going back and forth about it and then thought maybe I'll buy one after the holidays.

On my birthday, he slipped me a box. Not weighing a lot, I had no idea what it was and thought it might be a book (I actually did get a lot of books for my birthday, which is what I had asked for), only to be absolutely and pleasantly surprised with the exact thing I had been talking about a few weeks earlier.

He outdid himself, like always. And it made me think that even if he didn't have much to give me on a materialistic level, he would have done everything in his power to outdo himself in another way to make me happy. He always does. And it's not always on my birthday either, he is always sincerely trying to make me happy. After all of these years, after all we've been through, he still takes the time to think about the little things I say (and the big things too).
Thank you for a delightful birthday, GarrettBear, I love you to pieces.