Valentine’s Day: Whatev….

If I write one more blog post about marriage or love I think even  I  will throw up in my own mouth a little bit.  Seriously, enough already! It gets to be nauseating listening to someone pontificate about love.  But, tomorrow is Valentine’s day, so I think I have one more gushy post in me and then I promise I will stop.

Am planning to spend VD with a bestie girlfriend and my favorite son.  We’re going to cook, chat and have a great time.  I’ll miss my husband a teensy bit, but no more than I would on any given Tuesday night.  He’s not the grand gesture kind of guy, he’s more the I-love-you-today-and-I’ll-love-you-again-the-same-amount-and-with-the-same-devotion-and-stability-tomorrow type.  He’s definitely the kind you marry.

This week I came across an essay I wrote a while ago about love.  At the time, I was working on a book idea that explored each month of the year through the eyes of a spiritual seeker-mother-wife-modern woman.  Some day I may gather up all those months and do something with them, but for today, in honor of Valentine’s Day and as a tribute to my dear stable man, I offer you “February.”

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February is the month that always shines bright red in my mind.  Surely this must be because I’ve had years of Hallmark marketing overloading me with images of cupids, shiny doily hearts, red roses and chocolate boxes tied with a red bow.  But in my mind, each month brings a new color and February is definitely all painted in red.

The subject of February might seem obvious, it’s Love.  Right now I am humming that popular Michael Bolton song Love is a wonderful thing. This song was released when I was eighteen years old and in the throes of discovering what love can be.  The song says, well, obviously that it’s a wonderful thing, but also that it will make ya smile through the pouring rain, Turn your world into one sweet dream, and finally it promises that it will take your heart and make it sing.

It’s raining as I type and I can hear the drops pounding above me on the skylight and at least for this morning, I am very sick of the rain this season.  It seems like it has appeared too often, stayed too long, and given us all cabin fever.  I am still smiling, however.  Is it love that is making me smile through the pouring rain?

In February falls a holiday that has caused way more grief for men and women than it has ever helped: The dreaded Valentine’s Day.  I remember some doozies from my dating days, particularly from teenage years.

One boy bought me a white fluffy teddy bear, which I pretended to find thrilling and then I heard his father whisper to him, “See I told you she’d like it; they all love teddy bears.” But inside I wanted to scream But I am not five years old! Another boyfriend and I had a very intellectual discussion about Valentine’s Day and I shared my thoughts that couples should find ways to make each other feel loved and special regardless of the date. I told him that I found Valentine’s Day to be a pitiful excuse to lavish material things onto a relationship and call it cared for. I told him about an older couple I knew who had been married for thirty years who ignored Valentine’s Day altogether and instead had a little basket in their bedroom where they would each place gifts for the other.  They upheld this ritual just here and there throughout the year.  She baked shortbread cookies for him and put them in there; he purchased her new sewing scissors and she was excited.  My boyfriend agreed with the philosophy and therefore did nothing on the big day, and of course…. I was crushed.

Finally, one of my favorite boyfriends, a real sweetie… [to keep reading about love, click here…