Affections By Greeting Cards

It's time for you to sign your name on that birthday card but sometimes you want to say something personal even if the card already conveys what you feel.  

Cards can bring a laugh or convey sentiment and let the receiver know you care about them.  But just signing the card doesn't put that personal flare into it that you may want, yet you don't know what to say.  

The time comes to sign and deliver but you feel "put on the spot" or pressured to come up with something really good before sending that forget-me-not.  Even as a writer that thinks, plots and edits I find it hard sometimes to come up with something witty, funny, or sentimental to say.  We all get stuck but there is one thing for certain that you can convey and that is what is in your heart.  Wise words like this may seem a riddle too complicated to piece together but here are my steps to the words I write on cards. 
 

When it comes time to sign I close my eyes and envision that person in my mind.  If I can, I try to embody them in one word or a sentence.  Even if I don't know them extremely well, but want to convey they are part of my thoughts, then I think about them as how I see them.  I think about how I feel when I see them.  Happy, frustrated, sad all these will help you sum-up the words.  There are friends I've signed with "You're a rat-bastard and I love you for it." Knowing they wouldn't get offended.  Sometimes I'll insert phrases of a song that comes to mind.  But often times I can think of a time or place where they lifted my spirits or said a kind word and I tell them "remember when..." and end with "...you made my day, happy birthday."  

Sometimes I feel foolish or too vulnerable to say what I want to say but if I have the courage on that day to write down what is in my heart then it is a precious gift you give.  People respond to intimacy in a positive way because it is what everyone craves.  Emotions are the collective memories of an individual and if you can come from there the words will come.