The little things.

About a week ago, I got a package in the mail from my childhood best friend. (She’s one of those rare friends that distance and time has not touched – no matter how little we have in common today, our shared history is enough.) It was a rather large box… not very heavy though. I hadn’t the slightest idea of what she could have been sending me. When I opened it up, it turned out to be a box full of the most gorgeous autumn leaves. In the bottom of the box underneath about 300 leaves of all different colors and shapes and sizes was a note that read simply, “Thought I’d send you a few, since you couldn’t be here with me. All my love.” Since then, I haven’t been able to get this one small act of kindness out of my head.

Now I’m not going to start waxing lyrical about how we should all give up the materialism of the holidays and sing Kum-ba-yah around the campfire (this is due in part because I’m dying for the new Marc Jacobs bag, and because I’m too realistic for that). However, I have been thinking about how it’s often the unexpected moments in life that mean more than anything planned. It’s the time I was at the mall with my sister and she bought me a new MAC lipstick, just because. Or when my boyfriend told me out of the blue that he was proud of me for the good grade I got on a test.

It’s not that we don’t all like expensive gifts; it’s just that sometimes the other moments deserve some credit as well. You know the kind I’m talking about - the quiet moments, the type that makes your heart contract just a little bit. One you probably wouldn’t ever see in a movie, and you probably can’t even explain it; but it changes you, softens you, because you know that in all the sadness of the world, you have a few people to stop and say “I love you”… and that’s gift enough for me.