Of all my favorite holidays, Valentines isn't. It is a holiday that cannot live up to the hype and expectation. And every year, (really, EVERY year), I fall for it and end up filled with angst, and frustrated anger.
When I was an elementary school student, the biggest excitement was in eating scads of chalky hearts and giggling over the silly messages which we knew meant something, and even more importantly, something about boys and girls and dating and K-I-S-S-I-N-G, but there wasn't a layer of "Show me you love me in a big and meaningful way." There were no Kisses beginning with Kay, or queries about whether or not he had been to Jared. You made the big gesture if you gave the flashiest, most heavily be-stickered fold-in-half card to someone other than your BFF.
And then suddenly the boy-girl thing happened. Suddenly those conversation hearts were a little more meaningful. And just a little later, in junior high, there were carnation sales and rose sales as fundraisers. Those days were killers.
Every class period that morning was disrupted by enterprising upperclassmen entering with an armful of flowers. There was expectation and anticipation and disappointment in rejection all wrapped up in those single stems. Would you be the girl who got the yellow carnation of friendship, or the red rose of love, or the pink of I don't-even-remember-what? Would you be the boy that every girl bought a flower for in a shade of daring "date-me"? Would you be the shy kid in the back whose anxiety made you both wish for just one flower and fear that someone would actually send one. (Every time, times six years.) I'm pretty sure one year the teachers took up a collection to send me flowers just to keep me from crying.
In college, Valentine's Day was both another opportunity to party, and the night that you didn't want to be the leper washing your hair in the communal bathroom or schlepping to the rec room in bunny slippers while everyone else in the free world with a pulse and a pair of heels was making a mass exodus for amazing dinner and jewelry and wine. (Not me this time. My slippers were bears.)
Then the Valentine's that was certain to end in engagement, only it really ended with "I think we should see other people before we get serious." (Suddenly the card with one chocolate heart in it made more sense, it was not the decoy gift, it was the kiss-of-death.)
Then married Valentine's, part One. If you marry a man who is not into big gestures, who buys his gifts at the grocery store on the way home from work, or buys you a gift that's really a boomerang gift for himself, Valentine's is going to eat your soul. When your friend calls to say that she just opened an amazing piece of jewelry smuggled into her dinner entree and sprinkled with pixie dust and unicorn sparkles, you might want to stick a fork in your eye. Or hers.
It might make your hand-drawn on a post-it note in Sharpie Valentine a little less...well, just less. You might wonder how you have failed, again, at celebrating Valentine's in a way that will leave you with a memory for your golden years. You might try to plan elective surgery to avoid the lunch table conversation around "What did you guys do for Valentine's?" You might briefly contemplate homicide, but you live in a cold New England region where burial will have to wait at least six to eight more weeks, and nobody has that much quick lime.
And then Married Valentine's, part Two. Years pass and you find yourself divorced, single, and remarried over the span of several of those damn V-holidays. And you think that this time, yes this time, you will be the girl of a thousand flowers, with golden debris in her entree, and an amazing story at lunch on Monday. However, silly you. You have married a pragmatist. Handy for when your burning desire is to have the brakes replaced on your car, not so applicable in holidays of the gift-giving nature. Handy when you need someone to build a device to lift a mattress into a third story window of a two hundred year old house because the stairwell is too narrow, but not when just once before your dotage, you want to be the star of your own Romcom scene.
And so, my Valentine's loving friends, I wish you all the best with your holiday plans, but this is one celebration that I no longer take part in. I've heard the refrain "I don't want something on one day, I want to be shown that I'm loved every day" and I get it, but honestly, my brain and heart have a disconnect on this holiday. I want to be loved every day, and a little extra on Valentine's Day.
I tell myself that not all good things begin with Kay, but honestly, very few good Valentine's begin with kettlecorn. And if your holiday fare goes well with ketchup, we probably have vastly different expectations.
When I was an elementary school student, the biggest excitement was in eating scads of chalky hearts and giggling over the silly messages which we knew meant something, and even more importantly, something about boys and girls and dating and K-I-S-S-I-N-G, but there wasn't a layer of "Show me you love me in a big and meaningful way." There were no Kisses beginning with Kay, or queries about whether or not he had been to Jared. You made the big gesture if you gave the flashiest, most heavily be-stickered fold-in-half card to someone other than your BFF.
And then suddenly the boy-girl thing happened. Suddenly those conversation hearts were a little more meaningful. And just a little later, in junior high, there were carnation sales and rose sales as fundraisers. Those days were killers.
Every class period that morning was disrupted by enterprising upperclassmen entering with an armful of flowers. There was expectation and anticipation and disappointment in rejection all wrapped up in those single stems. Would you be the girl who got the yellow carnation of friendship, or the red rose of love, or the pink of I don't-even-remember-what? Would you be the boy that every girl bought a flower for in a shade of daring "date-me"? Would you be the shy kid in the back whose anxiety made you both wish for just one flower and fear that someone would actually send one. (Every time, times six years.) I'm pretty sure one year the teachers took up a collection to send me flowers just to keep me from crying.
In college, Valentine's Day was both another opportunity to party, and the night that you didn't want to be the leper washing your hair in the communal bathroom or schlepping to the rec room in bunny slippers while everyone else in the free world with a pulse and a pair of heels was making a mass exodus for amazing dinner and jewelry and wine. (Not me this time. My slippers were bears.)
Then the Valentine's that was certain to end in engagement, only it really ended with "I think we should see other people before we get serious." (Suddenly the card with one chocolate heart in it made more sense, it was not the decoy gift, it was the kiss-of-death.)
Then married Valentine's, part One. If you marry a man who is not into big gestures, who buys his gifts at the grocery store on the way home from work, or buys you a gift that's really a boomerang gift for himself, Valentine's is going to eat your soul. When your friend calls to say that she just opened an amazing piece of jewelry smuggled into her dinner entree and sprinkled with pixie dust and unicorn sparkles, you might want to stick a fork in your eye. Or hers.
It might make your hand-drawn on a post-it note in Sharpie Valentine a little less...well, just less. You might wonder how you have failed, again, at celebrating Valentine's in a way that will leave you with a memory for your golden years. You might try to plan elective surgery to avoid the lunch table conversation around "What did you guys do for Valentine's?" You might briefly contemplate homicide, but you live in a cold New England region where burial will have to wait at least six to eight more weeks, and nobody has that much quick lime.
And then Married Valentine's, part Two. Years pass and you find yourself divorced, single, and remarried over the span of several of those damn V-holidays. And you think that this time, yes this time, you will be the girl of a thousand flowers, with golden debris in her entree, and an amazing story at lunch on Monday. However, silly you. You have married a pragmatist. Handy for when your burning desire is to have the brakes replaced on your car, not so applicable in holidays of the gift-giving nature. Handy when you need someone to build a device to lift a mattress into a third story window of a two hundred year old house because the stairwell is too narrow, but not when just once before your dotage, you want to be the star of your own Romcom scene.
And so, my Valentine's loving friends, I wish you all the best with your holiday plans, but this is one celebration that I no longer take part in. I've heard the refrain "I don't want something on one day, I want to be shown that I'm loved every day" and I get it, but honestly, my brain and heart have a disconnect on this holiday. I want to be loved every day, and a little extra on Valentine's Day.
I tell myself that not all good things begin with Kay, but honestly, very few good Valentine's begin with kettlecorn. And if your holiday fare goes well with ketchup, we probably have vastly different expectations.
No comments:
Post a Comment