Valentine's Day has never had a huge appeal to me. I probably liked it best in elementary school when we got to wrap a shoebox in tin foil and paste construction paper hearts on it and then take it to school where it was stuffed full with little valentine greetings from classmates (which I never read) and candy (which I always ate in a day). Those were simpler times, for sure. No one lamented over not having a boyfriend or girlfriend and there was no pressure to find a gift that accurately reflected how much you loved the receiver of the gift. The only true disappointment of the day came when you saw instead of candy, your teacher had taped an unsharpened pencil to her valentine to you! Seriously, I thought these people were supposed to be smart ;)
As I got older, and didn't have a boyfriend come Valentine's day, I started to see and understand where the complexity of Valentine's Day came into play. It wasn't a day to pass-out cheap Valentine greetings to all your friends, it was a day to proclaim to your peers, "I am important enough to have a boyfriend/girlfriend!!" For those who didn't (even if by choice), it was hard not to feel somehow out of place. Seeing friends walk out of school with balloons and stuffed animals holding a box of chocolates was down right depressing. But, that's the nature of high school I guess. You magnify every situation and perceive it to be more significant than it really is. You, at the time, don't understand that the second you walk out of the doors of high school after graduation that none of that crap mattered, like, at all. The classmates who never were without a boyfriend or girlfriend weren't as awesome and perfect as everyone believed them to be. You realized that outside of the safety net of a small group of people, where it's not too terribly difficult to perch yourself high on a pedestal and convince others of your amazingness, you really are all equal--single or not. It's like the playing field immediately leveled the second the tassels were moved from one side of the cap to the other. If only we all could realize that while we're in high school--we'd spare ourselves a lot of unnecessary self-loathing and grief!
I'll admit, I did have a few Valentine's Days during my jr. high and high school years where I proudly marched into school on the morning of V-Day and stuffed my thoughtless gift into the lucky recipients locker--more concerned with getting to my own locker to see what treasures awaited! Sigh, so many aspects of teenage Erin I wish I could disown!! I'm ashamed to say I at time fell into the trap of finding self-value by the mere factor of having a boyfriend come Valentine's Day (even if I did break-up with him the next week--he had served his sole purpose after all). But, I guess those experiences have helped to shape my perspective of V-Day now, as a happily married adult and mother who knows the true meaning of love and the value of that love.
I haven't had a "single" Valentine's Day since graduation--I started dating my now husband a few months after beginning college. The first few Valentine's Days we had together carried a high level of expectation and anticipation--because I still had that immature side where I found an element of self-worth wrapped up in the gift I received, and because, for the first time, I actually did LIKE the person I was celebrating V-Day with. So dumb, I know. I know I was truly in the "honeymoon" stage of the early relationship because I thought the pink Ty Teddy Bear and Chocolates were the best thing ever (SMH)!!! Thank goodness I've grown-up a lot since then.
I have come to understand that Valentine's Day ISN'T a vitally important holiday. The weight of my love for someone or their love for me isn't represented in the gift or card given. And certainly, not having someone to share Valentine's Day with romantically by no means suggests you aren't important or special. Truly, I don't think Valentine's Day is just a day for lovers--notice Hallmark doesn't just have sappy V-Day cards for lovers...they also have them for parents, kids, grandparents...etc--proof V-Day isn't just a day of MUSH! Valentine's Day is merely a day set-aside to do something different than your normal every day gestures of love and appreciation to remind someone(s) how much they mean to you. It's not to be taken so seriously that people find themselves depressed and lonely--because in truth, don't we all have at least one person we love that could be celebrated on a day like today?? I would encourage any singletons out there to celebrate your singlehood today! Tell your family & friends how much you love and appreciate them, treat yourself, LOVE YOURSELF!! Don't let your self-worth take a beating today. I'd rather spend 100 Valentine's Days single than to be celebrating a superficial, un-authentic love with the wrong someone just for the sake of celebrating. In the end, the cards usually get thrown away, the chocolates make us fat, the flowers wilt and start to stink, and the stuffed animals just take up space and really aren't that cute--especially the creepy life-sized ones.
Keep Valentine's Day simple. It is just one day of 365 and it will be over and forgotten soon. I will love my husband just as much tomorrow as I do today. And honestly, he'll appreciate me cleaning the toilet, sweeping my shedded hair off the bathroom floor, or making dinner for the family more than he does the card or giant cookie I gave him. For me, I see Brian's acts of love in making sure the sidewalks are clear for me and the kids every day, putting gas in the car when it's cold so I don't have to stand outside, and in bringing me a Diet Coke from McDonalds before going into work this morning. And my kids, they've already peeled and placed every sticker from their sticker packs they got in their cards--and have eaten most of their shared giant heart cookie. They don't care that it's Valentine's Day, and they certainly know today and everyday how much Brian and I love them. For them, I hope it is always as simple as that--although something tells me they'll have to learn this on their own as well.
Happy Valentine's Day everyone--take some time to tell or show someone today how much you care!
A sampling of our festivities for V-Day 2014!!
Max & Maggie's card to Brian
Brian's Heart Cookie (we'll see if he shares!)
Max and his "Swoopie" card that "grows" when you open it!
Brian, mine, Max, & Maggie's cards--we could have ordered a pizza instead with the money we spent on these!! Sigh...well at least we've done our part to keep Hallmark in business for another year!
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