Frank and I do not celebrate Valentine’s Day. In the past, even as recently as two years
ago, we always made a point to mark the occasion in a particular way. He is (and I will still say is, even though we don’t celebrate
anymore) the king of creative ideas.
One year, he bought me one of those giant cards and wrote me
a poem on cut out hearts that he glued onto the giant card. One year, when I was living in DC, he bought
a pack of kid’s Valentine’s, personalized and numbered them, and sent them to
me in a box, so I had to open them in numerical order to read his message to
me. Another year, when I was really into
that season of The Bachelor, he laid
out rose petals leading into the house and at the end, asked me if I would accept
the rose.
He’s a peach!
Remembering those gifts makes me smile and catch my breath, even years
later.
But now we realize that as a married couple, our
relationship isn’t about marking a day with frivolous gifts just because the
rest of the world does. It’s about knowing
we have something special every day, and making time to recognize that
spontaneously or on any date of our choosing.
We could be better at that.
I could be better at
that.
The thing about my memories of Frank’s gifts is that I never
asked him to do any of that. I was so
wowed because he got creative, and all on his own! I wonder what
are you thinking, people who place insane pressure on your significant
others to celebrate Valentine’s Day? Don’t you think that you’d rather have
a significant other who wanted to show you what you mean to him/her all the
time? Rather than be bullied into it by
your incessant hint-dropping? Or your
neurotic need to tell everyone about what your person did for you on Valentine’s
Day?
I’m not just saying this because everyone else says it, I’m
saying it because it’s true: Valentine’s Day is a commercial holiday. It used to mean something, eons ago. It used to mark something having to do with
history. I don’t even feel like Googling
it to find out the real reason for the holiday; it’s pointless now. Because that real reason is now hopelessly
lost in Consumerism.
Of course, there are couples who use the date as a special
occasion. No one drops hints, no one
throws a fit to get their way.
Personally, I am always more impressed by the couples who have sweet
stories to tell all the time. That shows
dedication. If Walgreens tells me to buy
candy and that’s the only time I wake up enough to think of Frank, then I’m
missing my life as it flashes by, unmarked and unsweetened.
I’m lucky because I know that Frank would do those
Valentine’s Day things for me any day.
He used to make the effort to mark Valentine’s Day, but nothing would
stop him now if he felt like sending me a sweet note on a random
Wednesday. He is known to make a
shopping trip and come home with pretty flowers, just to show me he was
thinking of me.
I’m going to celebrate Valentine’s Day this year by digging
out my memories box to look back on those past gifts. Memories are a gift too, you know? And not just newly created, prompted,
scripted or otherwise expected memories.
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