The little love story that made me cry in my pedicure.

I cried in my pedicure the other day.

My pedicurist and I have known each other for probably a dozen visits. She is around 27, and her boyfriend, who has lived with her for a while, just turned thirty. I know, because my pedicurist has been planning a surprise party for him since at least ten visits ago.

She talks about him in our visits, what he does, the funny things he says, how sweet he is, how kind, how he will suddenly stop in the middle of a sentence to apologize for an insensitive remark. She loves him. He loves her. They have two cats who publicly dislike each other but, according to my pedicurist, are playful and affectionate in private when she and her boyfriend spy on them.

That was the story she told that made me like her, and her boyfriend, very much. 

There is a lot to love about love, especially young love when two people probably have the least of what they will come to have, and yet feel they have everything they need to live happily. Of course, like all of us, my pedicurist would certainly like more of good things, but need? No, she has what she needs and it is her boyfriend, and their wily cats.

I have seen a few young couples get married over the last year. Every time, it strikes me how the life side of things -  paying off loans, maybe looking for a house, settling into the first or second big jobs, establishing good credit and saving what they can, is dwarfed by the large-looming love side with all the giddy fun and laughter, easy joy and endless getting of Sunday morning breakfast.

For several months, I have been thinking about the simple beauty of a less-is-more mindset, even if the couples I've seen getting married may not know they share such a thing. The happiest people I've seen this year, are the ones who are firmly rooted in the pursuit of needs first, wants later.  

The last two times I came in for my visit, unsure of the time frame, I asked my pedicurist if she’d had the party for her boyfriend yet. “Nooooooo,” she dragged out the word. “But!” she said, “I think I know what to give him!” She went off topic for a minute, getting her things together, asking me if I had picked a color, and then, when we were settled, she said, “I just wish his parents could be here. He’s bummed that they can't do it.”

A while back, his parents had moved out of the state to begin the next leg of their life in another climate and he’d taken it “really hard,” she said.

He’d been a close kid, stopping on the way home from work, coming over for games, that sort of thing. Apparently, he and the dad were close, but he and the mother were also good friends.

“He’ll be okay,” my pedicurist said, “he just misses them, that’s all. But he’ll be okay,” she said. “I’ve been telling him that."

The comment hung there for a moment. 

Two weeks ago, I went for my appointment and as soon as I sat down, she pulled out her phone, “We did the party. I have a video!” she said, pulling it up.

Her cover was to bring him for a tour of a friend’s new house.  In the video her boyfriend is shown being led from empty room to empty room to check out the place. He’s making nice comments about the house when they reach a closed door. He is asked to open the door and when he does he finds his mother and father standing on the other side.

You hear him, “Oh my GOD!!” and he wraps his arms around his mom and sobs, as does she, and as does the dad, and as did I at the sight of them all reuniting.

My pedicurist laughed very hard at this. “Oh my God, my boyfriend’s party made you CRY! You’re such a mom!” 

Less really can be more when it comes to happiness; for many of us, needs are simpler than wants, easier to meet, way less expensive, and, when met, produce happiness dividends for others. 

It's okay to get what you want. And you can see just how much that is, looking around at where and how you spend your time. That's fine.  But, we need our loves, we need our attachments and we need our huge hugs when we reunite. 

Always. Always.

And cats. Many of us need cats, too.