So we have a kid, and I want to show appreciation, but how? I talked to my sister about my idea and she told me I was overthinking it. I didn’t want my gift to come off as romantic, but I was also aware that how I perceive my actions and how others perceive them are sometimes completely at odds. For example, I once sent my ex a kind text and she got upset. I assumed that if I was speaking from the heart and I wasn’t needy, that this would come across. It didn’t. I knew I wasn’t overthinking it.
My sister and I debated this. I told her that if I didn’t overthink, I would have gotten her chocolate, flowers, and a card, and called it a day. She winced at the idea. It was too romantic. It was clear to me I wasn’t overthinking. My ex and I have not had the best history together. I was terrible at picking up on her cues. Our relationship was insecure.
I decided to get her succulents, chocolate, a bag of pistachios, and I made her a card.
I wanted to play with some ideas before settling. This was my first stab at getting the vibe right. It’s not romantic. Maybe it’s something I could get my own mom.
As I was making the card, I started to doubt. It wasn’t coming together the way I liked. It’s one thing to find a card and pick up on a particular vibe, but I was making one. I wanted it to be cute and something that she might like. Her taste in things can be sensual with warm skin tones. I played around with these colors and again they didn’t feel right. I’m making something for mother’s day. I’m not making a romantic gesture. I decided to take some artistic license to go for a vibe she’d appreciate rather than try to match her aesthetic.
I didn’t realize this until later on, but a big font was too aggressive.
I wanted it to look cute. I threw everything cute in all together at once and it was awful. It looked sarcastic — mean, even. It was too playful and silly. I overdid it.
I decided to reel it back. One idea I played with was having an animal being a little silly for a situation and achieving a playful victory over it. I wanted the card to feel like home. I didn’t want anything sensual about the card. I wanted it to be nostalgic and warm. Even nostalgia is the wrong way to put it. I wanted the good nostalgia, and not the past that we had together. I wasn’t just making a card, I was trying to work something out.
As I played with all cursive fonts, none of them felt right. I decided to take it in a different direction: digital. This would balance out the playfulness. I also switched out the picture of curtains with that of a modern home.
One of the things I did wrong with my ex is I didn’t meet her where she was. I instead insisted on her meeting me where I was. I knew that in order for me to do this, I had to dip my toes in the world of the aggressively cute — pictures and images so cute that my masculinity normally steers clear. She’s the mother of my child and I care about her having a good life, but I want to be respectful of her choice to not be with me. After all, she has a boyfriend. The idea of chasing her is a little gross to me.
However, I also don’t want her to clam up so we can work through the various things we need to do for our daughter. I can be insistent on my way. I don’t want antagonism between us.
Even though I was just making a card, I was learning to listen. In the end, I came up with 4 cards designs and I fell in love with the last one and continued to play with it until it felt complete. The first card was playful enough but I wanted to use the extra cute kitten and make it feel more like home. The second card was nice but I wasn’t inspired to take it further. The third card looked like it was shouting, but the fox and the window were nice. The last card was my favorite — it’s subtle, playful, a tad nostalgic, but also modern.
If I was going to remake it, I would try to make the design a little less clinical. I would have tried including the digital font into other designs, and experimented with a smaller font earlier in the design process.
After I was done and printed the card, I looked back at my designs and wondered if they were all too cold and impersonal. I decided to experiment with photographs of my daughter and/or my ex. As I looked through pictures, and started making designs, I started to cry. I decided to stop and leave the card as is. The card isn’t about my daughter, it’s about appreciating my ex for her being a mom. I don’t have many pictures of them together, and the pictures that I have make me feel too raw. I feel weird even looking at pictures of my ex. If she's done with me, I don’t want to impose.
For a while after we broke up, I kept thinking of various grand gestures that I could make to get her back. Nothing felt right. It felt too risky, and I always imagined her getting mad at me. This was confirmed when I told my friend’s girlfriend about this and she told me she’s never seen a big gesture work, but has seen people get back together after slowly finding their way back to each other.
I really enjoyed reading this.