When A Gift Is Not A Gift

At least two years ago, a relative phoned me about gifting me some shoes. Despite this relative being at least three decades older than me, they’ve had very nice and expensive tastes in shoes, and because they had gifted me some shoes several years before in my youth, I gladly accepted their offering.

Although I was downsizing during this time and going through an entire wardrobe overhaul because I had changed careers, I decided to accept the shoes because I figured I might be able to use them for special occasions or job interviews. I reasoned that if my current job plans didn’t work out, I would always have a nice selection of shoes to choose from if I got another job.

Nevertheless, the relative did state that she’d be unable to send me the shoes right away because she’d be going on vacation for a few weeks. I felt that this information would help me to prepare for what was to come as I continued to downsize within my own closet. So I didn’t give the time frame much thought after that.

But, a few weeks became many more weeks, and many more weeks soon became 52 weeks until I no longer heard any more information about the shoes. This relative would contact me about the shoes approximately 104 weeks later. That’s 2 whole years years – not including the week that makes for the leap year! By this time, I had actually forgotten about the shoes and carried on with life.

Despite the relative reaching out to me two years later regarding the shoes, she was unable to reach me. So she called another relative with whom I stayed in constant contact in the hopes that the relative would relay her message. This relative phoned to tell me that I’d finally be receiving the shoes. Of course, I was a little confused because it had been two years! Yet, I agreed to still take them.

However, the relative who owned the shoes had failed to mention to me or the other relative some very relevant facts regarding the circumstances surrounding the shoes. I suppose to the relative who owned the shoes, it was the thought about the gift to me that counted – not just the actual gift itself. Besides, I was still getting the shoes even after two years despite the lack of communication in between those years.

Needless to say, the original delay to me receiving the shoes in the first place was that after the relative had returned from her vacation, she found that a trunk where the shoes had been stored had a jammed lock. Because the lock was jammed and the relative wasn’t able to remove the shoes, the relative just didn’t mention the shoes to me again until she could find someone who could open the trunk.

Opening the trunk took two years, but once it was opened, the relative took the shoes, had them placed inside of a huge box and sent word via another relative that the shoes were on their way in the mail to me. A few days before the shoes arrived to me, the relative attempted to reach out to me again, but I was unavailable. My unavailability angered the relative. So, she sent word via another relative how ungrateful I must be about receiving the shoes.

Frankly, I thought it was a tense time for no reason over some shoes that I’d been promised two years prior, but I tried to place myself in my relative’s shoes. She’s nearly 95 years of age, and from my experience, the expectations for contact that she requires is very different than what I am accustomed to on a personal level. It wasn’t that I was ungrateful at all, but I’m not sitting by the phone waiting on phone calls. I’m actually quite busy, and if I’m at work, I don’t take phone calls.

I didn’t need an excuse, but this relative expected one. After all, she was sending me a gift, and I needed to be grateful that I was getting them at all. It wasn’t that I wasn’t grateful, I just wasn’t going to allow someone else to dictate to me what I needed to do in regards to receiving shoes that hadn’t even been sent to me. I didn’t chase this relative down for the shoes. I didn’t even enquire her as to why they were two years later. Yet, she had expectations that I would drop everything to give her explanations as to why I wasn’t available for her response.

Regardless of age, this relative didn’t seem to think anything about not contacting me for two years about the shoes. Yet, instead of thinking of her as being dismissive, I assumed that maybe she forgot or things just became busy for her. I moved on with life and figured if she sent the shoes, I’d get them but if not, no big deal. It wasn’t a big deal until it actually became a big deal to her.

This relative’s expectation that I would be readily available every time she reached out to me since that time was astounding to me. I’d been told many times over by another relative and my dad how much the shoe owning relative complained about my never being available for her when she tried contacting me about the shoes even though this contact had only resumed after two years had gone by.

I found it to be crazymaking behavior, but I let it go because of the relative’s age. However, I was reminded about a past situation regarding this same relative when I had moved to their area and was interviewed for a job this relative had set up for me. Despite my gratefulness towards this relative for helping me to get the job interview, I failed the interview miserably, and this relative was so let down because of it.

I mainly failed because I am a selective mute who almost always experiences a freeze response to open ended questions. Having to think fast within the moment causes me to freeze and struggle with finding words to express my thoughts clearly. Because I failed the interview, the shoe owning relative felt that I had disgraced her because she had told her supervisor how intelligent I was as a recent college graduate.

However, despite my intelligence, selective mutism has often riddled me with social anxiety in high-pressure situations, making it difficult to access and articulate information, despite knowing it well. During that interview, I absolutely couldn’t find the words and literally felt dumb within the moment. Although I passed the skill portion of the interview, the verbal portion made me seem incompetent for the task.

Sadly, this relative didn’t make the situation any better for me. Her expectations for me at the time defied my situation as a selective mute, and she never truly treated me the same after that. Because I felt bad for embarrassing her, I did my best to make amends by helping her do things around her home. It was then she saw my eye for fashion and must have decided I’d be a good candidate for a gift of clothing and shoes. So as a token of her forgiveness of my failures, she gave me my first gift of several pairs of her designer shoes.

Needless to say, years later after this situation with waiting to receive shoes two years after I was to originally receive them, I called the relative to thank her when they arrived, and I left it at that. However, I failed to mention to her that the bulk of the shoes were damaged from having been locked inside of a trunk for so long. I simply graciously accepted the gift and left it at that, but the gift was not just a gift. Instead, the gift became a bigger ordeal.

No sooner than I’d moved on from the shoe situation, I received a phone call from my dad basically chastising me (a grown woman, I might add) about not being grateful for the gifts that I receive from others. Talk about stunned into silence. I was beside myself with disbelief and confusion. Then I felt immediate anger because I felt the need to explain myself. Yet, once I explained the entire situation about the shoes to my dad, he became befuddled and simply added that the relative’s old age had quite possibly made her immediately forget that I thanked her during our last phone call.

Although the aging forgetfulness may be true, I felt that maybe there was still some residue from the past regarding my failed interview nearly 30 years ago. Even though she gifted me some shoes, she perhaps still tied those events from the past with her memories of me and why she originally began gifting me with shoes in the first place. I don’t know, but entire situation was frustrating because without even considering the situation, I was deeply saddened and angered by how my dad first took this relative’s side without even knowing the full story.

Needless to say, the shoes were a gift that never actually became a gift but were a reminder of things I still need to deal with regarding the past. In some way, I still feel defined by my struggles during my youth. I felt always trapped into being viewed as a troublemaker in the eyes of others without ever being seen for who I truly am as a person. I wasn’t clear on why this relative thought of me in terms of the shoes in the first place unless it was because of my work in a previous profession that required a sense of professional style, but the gift didn’t feel like a gift for me at all.

But then again, maybe the gift is in realizing who I was before and who I became after a journey through healing. I don’t know, but that was just one more event in life that made me question the sanity of it all. Stay tuned …