What your wrapping style says about you

nothing really, but I need to admit how awful I am at it

I promised some of this writing would be about the boring day-to-day life of me, a trans woman, so that you could all hopefully relate to me a little better. I present to you today (honestly, no pun intended), my failing as a gift-wrapper.

Transition has made me no better at wrapping gifts. Practice has made me no better at wrapping gifts. YouTube videos have made me no better at wrapping gifts. Paper with scissor guides? Nope. Good tape? Nope. Putting them in a perfectly square box with great corners? Nope? Giving myself more time to wrap? No. Cannabis? No. A glass of wine? No. No cannabis and no glass of wine? No. There is nothing that can keep my gifts from looking like rolled up pieces of garbage, even if the gift is a flat piece of art.

What I have improved at over time, albeit only with a lot of work, is realizing my wrapping style, and subsequent presentation of my gifts, is not indicative of the care or thought that has gone into them.

So again I’m sitting down with my presents to wrap, again looking at them a little like a brand new agenda, thinking, “this year I’m going to keep this shit neat and tight!” And that first fold is going to be crisp, and the first bit of tape is going to go down smooth, then I’m going to reach those end folds and I’m going to lose my mind and cut too much excess away and end up with one side of the gift that looks flat and smooth and another side, or possibly two ends that look like a recently used cat litter box.

And I’m going to remind myself I put a lot of thought into the gift itself, and that being a bad gift wrapper doesn’t make me a terrible person, and I’m going to shove them all towards the back of the tree, behind all the really well-wrapped gifts so that they don’t see the light of day until people are more interested in ripping the paper apart anyway.