When you’re not keeping score

It's my husband Chuck's birthday today. And if you have a December birthday, you probably already know how this usually goes.

December birthdays get the shaft.

Every year, there’s always something else happening. A school concert. A basketball game. Work deadlines. Christmas looming like a freight train. And for the last twenty-some years, his birthday has almost always ended up quietly pushed to the back burner. 

Not because he isn't important, but because life is loud this time of year.

And the thing is, he never complains.

Because Chuck is our rock.

He's the guy who makes sure the oil in all the cars is changed and checks the tire pressure any time we have to drive more than 20 miles. The guy who breaks down all the Amazon boxes from the things I order (and there are a lot of them) and drags the garbage and recycling all the way to the curb without complaining, which is no small task when you live on six acres. He’s the one who makes sure we all eat breakfast. Who gets out all the stains in our laundry, and keeps the pool sparkling clean, even though we never want to swim. Who makes sure the kitchen is tidy after everyone goes to bed, and that the doors are locked and the garage doors are closed.

He's the one who keeps our life running and keeps us safe. Who makes me a Bloody Mary without even asking when he can tell I’m feeling stressed, and who will listen to me babble on endlessly about whatever project I happen to be obsessing over, even when he probably couldn’t care less.

It's all invisible work. The kind nobody applauds, or even pays attention to most of the time.

So this year, I wanted to make sure he knows how much I appreciate all those little things he does, even if I don’t always acknowledge them.

There's a dish his mom used to make for his birthday every year—a traditional Czech meal called Kopravka. He absolutely loves it. He hasn't had it since she died 15 years ago.

It's Czech bread dumplings with slow cooked beef and a special creamy dill gravy. An all-day ordeal.

When she was still alive, she wrote down the recipe and even once walked me through making it. But at the time, I was a vegetarian so I never actually tried it, and her cursive notes weren’t all that legible.

But every year, he talks about it. So every year, I’d pull out that recipe and try to figure out what the heck it actually says, then get totally overwhelmed with all the other December madness and put it back in the drawer. 

So I've never made it for him. Not once in all these years.

And I know that made him sad, even though he never said anything. But I also knew it would mean something if I figured it out.

But this year ChatGPT and Google Gemini have basically become my new best friends, especially in the kitchen. They’ve helped me master sourdough and roasting beets and dry brining steaks and all sorts of other things I’ve never dared to try before.

So I figured, why not ask AI for a little help with the Kopravka?

I uploaded his mom's handwritten recipe. I asked a million questions. I described what I remembered from that one time I watched her make it. And Gemini actually walked me through the whole thing, step by step.

First, the bread dumplings. Which are their own whole thing.

I made them on Sunday while Chuck was napping, and when they actually turned out, I thought—okay, maybe I can do this.

My girls agreed to make the poppy seed cake (another Czech tradition) so I could focus on the kopravka. And we planned his little birthday dinner for Monday night because, of course, we have something tonight. (One daughter has to cheer at the basketball game. The other has orientation for her new school. Everybody's busy on his actual birthday. Again.)

So Monday, I spent most of the day cooking. Chuck had some errands to run, and I was hoping he'd be back a little later so everything would be ready by the time he got home. But he walked in while it was still cooking.

Kopravka has a very distinct smell. He knew immediately.

He could tell I was trying to surprise him, so at first he tried to act like he didn't notice, which was cute. 

But then he just looked at me and said, very simply:

"You're a good woman."

That was it. No big speech. No gushing.

But in that one sentence, I knew how much the effort meant to him, and how loved he felt.

Khalil Gibran once said, “work is love made visible." Along those same lines, Diane Sawyer noted that "a good marriage is a contest of generosity."

In other words? Love isn’t about keeping score.

It's not about grand gestures or keeping things even. It's about entering someone else's world—tackling something hard and intimidating and emotional because it matters to them.

I think one of the reasons our marriage actually works, despite the fact that we are polar opposites in most ways, is that we always give each other the benefit of the doubt. We assume the other person is doing their best. There's no tallying who did more, or who's more tired, or who deserves what in return.

We both give 100%. But sometimes that 100% looks different depending on the season. Sometimes it's less because we don't have more to give. But we always choose to believe the other person is giving what they've got.

And I see the opposite of this with our girls sometimes—they're always worried about who's doing more dishes, who got the easier chore, who has more presents under the tree. They're counting. And I wonder where that comes from, because that's not what we model for them.

But I get it. Because keeping score feels fair. It feels like protection.

The problem is, it's exhausting.

We don’t always get burned out because we’re doing too much. We get burned out because we’re counting. Because we’re expecting to even the score. 

And this time of year especially, it's so easy to start feeling bitter or unappreciated—especially if you're the one carrying the mental load of making all the magic happen for everyone else.

But there's actually a lot more joy in simply serving the people you love without expecting anything back.

Because the truth is, it does come back. Often in quiet ways. In small moments. And often when you least expect it.

So my challenge for you this week—especially as the holidays ramp up—is to stop keeping score. Maybe you don’t even realize that you have been, or that it is quietly stealing your joy.

But use this season to give without counting. To do the kind thing. Make the effort. Show up generously. Not because you're owed something in return, but because love works best when it's freely given.

Live with purpose, friend, and have an amazing week!

xoxo, Ruth

P.S. I always love hearing back from you—if this one hit home, feel free to hit reply and let me know! 

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