Valentine’s Day Dilemma

I’m late.  What else is new?

I received my first heart-shaped box of chocolate of the season yesterday morning at about 9 AM.  I ate the four yummy little confections enclosed inside by about 9:05. 

I’ve written about this holiday before.  But, this week, Girl Talk Thursday is all about the big V Day.  So, here I go…

I really am a romantic at heart.  It isn’t that I’m a cynic or cold-hearted.  However, I believe that Valentine’s Day places undue stress on many relationships: budding, struggling, and even just busy.  Not to mention the alienation of the entire world of singles….it’s like the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve and they’re left without anyone to kiss – except it lasts all…day…long.  A full twenty……four……hours………..of awkwardness.

This holiday forces people to lump their relationships into silos and give gifts that are suitable to the status of their bonds.  As I’ve mentioned before, I fear rejection desperately.  In this, I know I am not alone.  For those young and “it’s complicated” relationships, Valentine’s Day builds up even more hype and tension surrounding those electrical impulses that silently, invisibly dart through the air between our limbic lobes.  And that hype and tension does nothing but congest the airways, making it difficult for emotion to navigate.

I will say, with certainty, that I love to watch little people practice the show of affection this time of year.  There is a lesson integrated within this day of romance and emotion.  I love to see their faces light up with pride, excitement and anticipation as they thrust at you their folded, stickered, commercial valentine with your name chicken-scratched onto the outside.  I smile and oooooh and aaaaaah and hug them as though they’ve just presented me with a priceless diamond ring.  Sometimes, they blush.  Sometimes, they tentatively and oh-so-slightly step in closer as I read the silly message, eagerly awaiting my squeeze and squeals.  This is my favorite part of the annual Valentine’s Day season.  It is so good and pure I can’t help but grow more than a little sentimental.

I also have lovely visions in my future mind of little gray couples sitting sweetly at a breakfast table, sipping coffee and reading.  Their movements much slower in this decade of their love story, one gingerly hands the other a card.   It’s just a simple card, but the words inside tell a story that brings a smile to their faces.  Their hearts are still the same young, frisky hearts that stood before the world and said “I do”.  The same scared, hopeful hearts that kissed the soft little round head of an itty-bitty baby.  The same proud, bittersweet hearts that stood together and clapped for their young graduate.  Those two lovers, who now routinely remind each other of appointments and dietary guidelines and when to take their pills and what year they met, know Valentine’s Day as a sweet gift.

So, I guess in sum, I find Valentine’s Day is best for the very young and the very old.  All the rest of us just need to take more care to live more lovingly everyday.