I love Valentine's Day. Doesn't every woman? If she has a pulse, a woman wants some kind of acknowledgment when it comes to Cupid's magnificent day. Yes, it's a Hallmark holiday. Florists jack up the price of long stem red roses. Men get grumpy over having to buy chocolates or feel resentful over having to pick up a last minute card on the way home from work. Restaurants insist on special "holiday menus" with exorbitant prices. I get the beef over the commercialization of February 14th.
But it is still a sweet day.
Listen, I don't want a card that was picked up haphazardly. I won't even eat the chocolates in the red velvet heart-shaped box (the whole mystery of what color and flavor cream lurks inside each chocolate doesn't excite me). My husband knows not to buy me flowers on the most expensive day of the year because I think it is ridiculous. But I love Valentine's Day. Why?
Because I love love.
I love the idea of love. I love everything it represents. I love that we have one special, solitary, designated day set aside for the institution of love. Ever since I was a little girl, I have loved the warm glow of feeling loved and the radiance of giving love away....to anyone who would accept it. I loved drawing hearts, doodling Cupid, and to this day, I still sign off very often with "xo". I like loving on people, and, I ask you, who doesn't need love?
From as early as Kindergarten, I have memories of the red doilies and glue sticks and pink construction paper hearts. I was thrilled to learn the magic of folding the paper in two equal parts, cutting half of the shape of a heart along the crease, and opening it to reveal a perfectly symmetrical heart. I loved the Valentine card exchanges and the elementary school parties. I would take painstaking care to pick out just the right sentiment for each recipient of my cards. And, before it truly meant anything "real", it was always fun to include the little hard candy hearts with the profound stamped messages, "BE MINE" or "I LOVE YOU".
Of course, then it always became a rush to include those delicious candy niceties when there was an element of interest on true crush material. The boy who held status "crush of the week" was always elevated the week of February 14th, so it was of utmost importance his candy heart message read true. Even more serious than the game of MASH, his candy heart was synonymous with foretelling the future. I mean, if this was ultimately the man I was to marry, that powdery heart better read, "BE TRUE", right? Some might argue these confections contend with even fortune cookie readings.
For a little girl, Valentine's Day is right up there with dreaming about her wedding day, except as miniature women, we get to experience and enjoy Valentine's Day year after year without the agonizing wait for the trip down the isle. And as we get older, we only reinvent love with each passing Valentine's Day. As chicks, we dream up new ideas of what love really means and what we would like for it to look like in our own lives. We are able to shower our husbands with affection and bake them something rich and sinful to eat. And then when kids come along--watch out-- we get to organize those classroom Valentine's Day parties and go hog wild with the doilies and glittery scalloped heart stickers.
Then there are the men. What do they want? Let's be real. Sex. The end.
What I used to regard as a (somewhat annoying) man's need for the physical all of the time came to be understood as the (preferred) way men communicate, connect, interact, express love, and really feel loved. Most men (I think) really are very basic in this need because it represents so much of who they are, how they express themselves, and their self worth. The more we meet them in the sheets, the more we love them, as I understand it.
Women are so much more complicated in the sense that we want it all. We want the whole package. We want to be loved for more than what we bring to bed.
I was just asked why pornography bothers me while love scenes in movies are seemingly benign. I used "The Notebook" as an example. Regardless of how one feels about that movie, for me (and I think most women), it encompasses so many elements of what we love in a love story. There is a real, raw connection between two people, there is the element of unrequited love, then there is the issue of forbidden love, so to speak. There is the idea that love knows no bounds and the heart really cannot differentiate between "acceptable or unacceptable love" anyway. The heart wants what the heart wants. The love scene, in addition to every other factor in the equation, is romance....which is what women really want at the heart of it all.....
Is there a day more romantic than Valentine's Day? Why else would it be such a popular day to get married, take a romantic weekend away, or rededicate one's love for another? I think at the heart of it all, everyone wants to be loved. Men just don't want the pressure of "performing" and jumping through designated hoops on a specific date to make their women happy; men will be the first to chalk it up to a "silly Hallmark holiday", but the fact remains, Hallmark knows how to snare women, and it's with sugary sweet cards and cheesy poetry. We eat that stuff up. It's like our crack. We just can't get enough romance.
I don't need flowers or jewelry or candy on Valentine's Day, but I will be making pink and red love notes with my kids. We will decorate little mailboxes and deliver cards to people we care about. Shoot, we may even live a little and bake some red velvet cupcakes with heart sprinkles. Why not splurge on love? If nothing else, shouldn't Valentine's Day be a day set aside to teach our kids about sharing love?
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