The Hardest Thing

... about surprises is keeping them. I don't know about people in general, but I find it terribly hard to keep it quietly to myself once I had, say, purchased a really extraordinary birthday present, or started making something as a gift to someone. The moment the idea is conceived, nevermind whether or not it has materialised, the excitement starts building. It is most of the time impossible to contain - that crazy, overwhelming, unbearably strong urge to just tell it!

Some may, though most won't, recall the very slight allusion to something pink some months ago. That was somewhere near the moment the idea of a pink unicorn dawned upon me. It is unbelieveable how much effort it took to kept it a secret from the birthday girl I wanted to surprise with it. In a way, I risked failing because somewhen along the way, I did tell her I was going to give her two presents - one I bought, and one I made. Thank goodness the handmade item was something so unexpected, that even though I dropped a hint of its being, it still managed to surprise her into a screaming state:


One of the reasons I get so excited when I knew just how surprising the surprise would be, is this:


This million-dollar smile on a loved-one's face, which definitely is worth more than a million dollars (right, you don't have to try to make sense of this nonsensical statement). Note: photos taken from here.

The risk of spoiling the surprise is only one of the disadvantages of leaking surprises-in-the-making out. Another is that sometimes, the project never gets completed. Well, it happens to me rather often. I have lost count, or rather, lost the courage to keep count of how many abandoned projects I have with me. The oldest is a half-finished piece of cross-stitch design, which I received as a birthday present when I was 20 or so. It was of a baby Minnie Mouse, and due to extreme lack of skills and/or inability to count stitches, and/or innate carelessness, its nose turned out skewed to one side. It looked awful and would not do at all - but I was too lazy and/or apathetic and/or bored with the piece by then to undo the stitches and correct the mistakes. And I couldn't go on because it looked simply... awful. So it remained, thereafter, half-completed, skew-nosed. As usual, I digressed.

Lastly, if someone were planning something for me, and I was given a hint of the surprise in the making, yet was not of the finer details, I am quite certain the suspense alone would drive me out of my wits. The anticipation would build to such a level that my expectations may become unrealistically high - and then...? It might not be, but I'd rather not even the slightest possibility of my loved-one being disappointed by the result of my effort, simply because of over-expectation.

By now, are you wondering where I am heading with this post? You might have guessed it, but I musn't tell! I mustn't say it, mustn't breathe a word, musn't allow these reckless typing fingers to reveal the remotest hint! Musn't, musn't, mustn't! Argh!