Which One Do You Like?

"Do you like this pattern?"

Tim held up a delicate china plate decorated with tiny blue flowers around the edge.

I stared at it.

The flowers stared back.

"Which one do you like?" I asked. He laughed. "No, which one do you like?"

There was a problem. I had no idea. Not because I couldn't tell the difference. I simply didn't understand why we needed china in the first place.

We were standing in a department store creating our wedding registry, and apparently this was an important decision.

At least it seemed important to everyone else. I kept looking around wondering if they had accidentally confused me with another bride.

The kind who grew up dreaming about wedding registries and matching dishware. I was trying my best to participate, but honestly, all I could think was...

People actually own plates like this?

Growing up, we weren't discussing china patterns. We were discussing whether there was anything to eat. Fine china wasn't exactly a hot topic in the Piney Woods.

Truthfully, we used our hands to eat or paper plates would make an appearance on Thanksgiving. Not the sturdy kind either. The cheap ones. The kind that folded under the weight of your food.

You'd pile on turkey, dressing, gravy, sweet potatoes, rolls, and anything else you could get your hands on. Then you'd carefully carry that overloaded plate back to your seat like a bomb technician transporting unstable explosives.

The center would begin to sag. The gravy would start migrating. And everybody knew what happened next. You either caught your dinner before it hit the floor...or you raced the dogs to it.

And there were always dogs. Lots of dogs. Nothing motivates a child quite like watching a turkey leg sliding toward a pack of determined mutts.

So imagine my confusion standing in a department store discussing china. But the plates were only the beginning. Apparently the china had to match the crystal.

The crystal had to match the goblets. The goblets had to match something else I can no longer remember because my brain had already left the building.

Then came sterling silver. Now let me ask you something. Have you ever priced a single sterling silver fork?

Not a set. Not twelve forks.

One fork.

I picked one up, turned over the price tag, and nearly swallowed my tongue! That fork cost more than our all entire Thanksgiving dinners growing up.

I kept waiting for someone to explain what made it special.

Did it cook?

Did it clean itself?

Did it come with a college education?

Because for that price, I expected something.

Then my future mother-in-law explained that after people purchased gifts from the registry, I would need to send thank-you notes.

Naturally, this required another decision. I had to select the stationery. The stationery.

For the thank-you notes. For the gifts. For the china. That matched the crystal. That matched the goblets. That matched the sterling silver fork that apparently required its own mortgage payment.

What exactly was I supposed to write?

Dear Aunt Margaret,

Thank you for the fork.

I promise to think of you every time I stab a green bean.

Love,
Pam

The whole wedding experience felt like one giant pop quiz over subjects I'd never studied.

What kind of veil do you want?

No clue.

What style shoe?

The comfortable kind.

What flowers?

The ones that don't die before the ceremony.

What colors?

Whatever color wedding colors are supposed to be.

Then came the dress.

And don't even get me started on the bra situation.

Anyone blessed with a generous chest understands that wedding dresses and bras often have a complicated relationship.

The dress wanted one thing.

Gravity wanted another.

The bra had opinions of its own.

By the time we found a solution, I was fairly certain engineering firms should be involved in bridal fittings. Everyone seemed surprised by my lack of enthusiasm.

But I wasn't ungrateful.

I was overwhelmed.

These weren't decisions I had spent years imagining. I never daydreamed about weddings.

I never sat around planning centerpieces. I was too busy trying to survive childhood. Years later, when we built a custom home, the same thing happened.

What color cabinets?

What hardware?

What flooring?

What countertops?

What paint?

What fixtures?

And every time, my answer was the same.

"Which one do you like?"

At first, I thought I was being easygoing.

Flexible.

Considerate.

But eventually I realized something. People weren't asking me because they needed my agreement. They were asking because they genuinely wanted to know what I thought.

What I liked.

What I preferred.

And I didn't know.

Not because I didn't care.

Because nobody had ever asked before.

Or maybe because I'd spent so many years becoming whatever version of myself other people seemed to need that I never stopped long enough to discover who I was.

One day, I started asking myself a different question. If nobody else were in the room...what would I choose?

What restaurant?

What color?

What vacation?

What dream?

The answers didn't come quickly. But they came. One small choice at a time. Years later, I figured out my favorite color.

My favorite restaurants.

The places I like to visit.

Even how I like my Christmas tree decorated.

For years, I decorated it the way Tim remembered from childhood. The same colors. The same style. The same traditions.

Not because he asked me to. Because I never stopped long enough to ask myself what I wanted it to look like. Turns out I do have opinions after all.

Who knew?

For most of my life, I thought being considerate meant letting everyone else choose. I thought love looked like adapting.

Accommodating.

Agreeing.

I thought being easygoing was a virtue.

And sometimes it is.

But somewhere along the way, I realized there is a difference between being considerate and disappearing.

What I didn't understand back then was that the people who loved me weren't asking because they needed my approval.

They were asking because they wanted to know me.

Really know me.

What made me laugh.

What brought me joy.

What colors I loved.

What traditions mattered to me.

What dreams I carried around when nobody was looking.

They weren't asking me to choose a china pattern.

They were asking me to share a piece of myself.

And that was terrifying.

Because sharing a preference sounds simple until you've spent a lifetime hiding behind everyone else's.

A favorite color isn't really a color.

It's vulnerability.

A favorite restaurant isn't really about food.

It's vulnerability.

Answering honestly means there's a chance someone won't agree.

Won't understand.

Won't choose the same thing.

And for a little girl who spent most of her life trying to fit in, that felt risky.

So I hid.

Behind flexibility.

Behind "whatever you want."

Behind "I don't care."

But the truth was, I did care. I just didn't know how to let people see me.

Funny how life works.

The thing I thought made me lovable, always agreeing, always adapting, always going along, was often the very thing keeping people from knowing me.

And it turns out being known feels a lot better than being agreeable.

Of course, if anyone asks me to choose between twelve china patterns, matching crystal, sterling silver, personalized thank-you notes, and a fork that costs more than all Thanksgiving dinners...

I'm still likely to look around for Tim.