Valentine's Day

I read an article yesterday about pets being your valentine.  How yes, there are crazy people who shell out money for their pets on Valentine’s Day. It is the old fashioned kind of love that you can’t text or send an e-mail to.  You can’t call them up (though many of us do) and leave messages of love on your phone.  It’s the kind of love that you actually have to give to them in person.  Kneeling on the floor, rubbing behind their ears, scratching the top of their head.  NayNay will actually let me hug her.  Zeke won’t sit still enough.

I declared to my best friend of 22 years--Kelli—“I am beginning to believe Valentine’s Day is for dating couples and newlyweds.”  

Valentine’s Day was only important to me in the absence of a boyfriend or when love was new. When you are single, somehow Valentine’s Day seems even more important than it really is.  When you are just dating—it’s just exciting to finally have someone to celebrate love with.  Now that I have been married nine-and-a-half years, when I think Valentine’s Day I think over-crowded restaurants and over-priced flowers.   I ask my friends and co-workers what they are doing and the ones that have been married for years often begin the conversation with some word that is more like a noise.."Hmm..nah...".  They may say they went to dinner a couple nights ago or will over the weekend, but to all you starry-eyed single people out there-- us married people were probably already going to go out anyways, we are just calling it Valentine's dinner and to celebrate may even allow ourselves an appetizer. 

So Kelli tells me that Valentine’s Day isn’t important either but she wants to get something for the kids.  Later she texts me and tells me of the flowers and chocolate-dipped strawberries her husband of almost 20 years surprised her with.  She’s weepy and Kelli’s never weepy.   She even takes pictures of it and sends them to me, minus one chocolate covered strawberry she has already eaten.

I have decided to bake Steve a cake and I know he has plans to go out and buy me something small....other than a spice rack ;).  We don't normally celebrate Valentine's Day and truthfully neither I nor Kelli would be disappointed with nothing.  The truth is, we agree that it isn't Valentine's Day that is so special, it's when someone just takes the time to think of us and to do something special.

So for either of us—Valentine’s Day isn’t about the chocolate-dipped strawberries or the chocolate cake (though of course you could never have too much chocolate- strawberries, cakes or labs)!   It’s about the thought, and truth be told it’s really just a day that reminds us to stop and love the one we are with.  So for this Valentine's Day post-- I wish my husband, partner and  valentine...Steve..Happy Valentine's Day.   You and I both know that love isn't about a day but about what we have that gets us through every day, every joy, every trial, and every path in life.