Special Feature–February Meet the Romance Author!
Meet Miranda Oh!
February the month of romance, chocolate-covered strawberries, slow jams and rose petals. February; also the month where suicide is at its all-time high, mostly because most of the northern hemisphere (where I live) it’s dark, cold and it’s been dark and cold for months, a time where Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) affects close to 80% of us in some capacity.
It got me thinking this year about the importance of romance, not only on the 14th of February but every day in our lives. Whether that is romancing your loved one, significant other, pooky bear, or simply romancing yourself.
I am all about romancing ourselves and making sure that we take the time out of our busy lives to ensure that our bodies, minds and souls are aligned and fulfilled. But for this year, I wanted to dive a little deeper into the love language aspect of things.
What kind of love language do you speak? Words of Affirmation, Acts of Service, Receiving Gifts, Quality Time, or Physical Touch? As we are all unique individuals, our love language is different too. Learning what type of love language you speak is equally as important to understand what love language your partner speaks. I have learned that my love language is ‘Words of Affirmation’ – go figure I am an author, would I have it any other way? I tend to tell my coworkers how much I appreciate them daily and I tell my partner how much I love him, and how appreciative I am to have him around a million times a day.
When my partner and I were fresh and new in each other’s lives, he often would tell me that the multiple affirmations a day would throw him off as he wasn’t used to that kind of love language. Instead of dialling back on my love language, and not being true to my authentic self, I took the time to discuss and share with him the love language types and definitions to help us find balance and understanding. With this conversation and practice, he found understanding in me and how I tick, and we also learned that his love language was a combination of ‘Physical Touch’ and ‘Acts of Service’.
Once we learned that we communicated our love and appreciation differently, we were better able to understand each other. For example, if I said “I love you and appreciate you” his response would be to follow up with a big bear hug and full-body embrace for a minimum of 10 seconds – those types of hugs rejuvenate your soul.
Now perhaps I didn’t know or understand that his love language was different than mine, and he doesn’t return the “I love you” back verbally, I could potentially be hurt, or start to feel insecure about his feelings towards me. With this new found knowledge, when he responds with a language he is stronger with, I now know that the response is genuine and real.
Another example; if he unloads the dishwasher (because I hate that chore) I will tell him; “I am very appreciative of you doing that chore because you know how much I dislike it.” His response will be to follow up with another ‘Act of Service’, perhaps bring me a cup of coffee or tea, or offering to rub my feet while we watch TV at the end of the night.
By simply understanding that we communicate our love differently, our bond grows and evolves deeper than we both expected.
By no means are we perfect – but we do look at this as a way to romance each other on a daily. As the good ol’ V-Day is right around the corner, we sat back and decided to take on a challenge – can we romance each other in a different love language? Can I take his love language, and romance him the way he would romance me for the whole day and vice versa?
We are both extremely excited to try this out and have some fun with it. Of course, chocolate, roses, slow jams, and perhaps a good glass of wine is still in order – because why not?!
For the next couple of weeks as I prepare for Valentines’ Day, I am working on a list of things I can do for my partner that he does for me, and vice versa. Over our romantic dinner, we will compare notes, critique and learn even more about each other. As an author; these communication experiments are so helpful when working on creating new and exciting stories. I call it a two-for, I not only learn about my partnership and myself but I also learn for future creation!
Here’s a look at Miranda’s latest release JUST BREATHE: CHIN UP, TITS OUT!
Continuing the saga of Hadley, recently divorced and wending her way down the path of life in anticipation of her rapidly approaching 30th birthday as a single woman. Testing waters and wantonly accepting new and exhilarating scenarios, Hadley wisely chooses each path carefully before diving into the quagmire which is life. A humorous, oft times sexy, look at life from a young woman’s standpoint, readers will laugh out loud at some scenarios, cry at others and knowingly shake their heads at still others.
