Roses are Red, Valentines' Blues
“Hello?”
“Hey E. Happy Valentine’s Day!”
“Isn’t it just your favorite day?” E’s deadpan tone is dripping with sarcasm. And, to be honest, bitterness. Clearly, this wasn’t her favorite day at all.
For some, February 14 is a four-letter word. It’s a reminder that you’re alone, that you’re clearly going to die alone, that you might as well give it up now and start adopting cats.
For me, February 14th is just another day, only, on this day, you have a better excuse to eat chocolate. This sounds like sour grapes, I know, like I don’t want a valentine anyway. But it’s not. Valentine’s Day is usually only great for a select group of people. Hallmark, Russell Stover’s and the people who make those Mylar helium balloons. Other than those select corporations, I’ve never heard of anybody who had a GREAT Valentine’s Day. A nice day, a great dinner, something special, but a GREAT Valentine’s Day? It’s like a GREAT New Year’s Eve: try to find someone who had one. Nearly impossible.
When I was a kid, I used to love Valentine’s Day. My parents would buy me one of those red hearts full of chocolate. We would have to bring a shoebox into class that we would decorate with construction paper, markers, paper lace doilies, stickers, glitter glue, whatever our New York City public school PTA budget could provide, making beautiful mailboxes to hold all our cards. The night before Valentine’s Day, I would painstakingly print out the name of each and every classmate on my tiny valentines with pictures of Strawberry Shortcake or the Carebears and the cheesy little jokes that only an 8-year-old finds funny. We would wait all day until our class moms came in with cupcakes and juice and little bags of candy and we would run around and deliver all our valentines and eat and then, when we were all good and sugared up, the teacher would send us home to our parents.
When I got older, my mom would buy me Godiva chocolates in place of the drugstore hearts. I used to get cards from secret admirers in high school and carnations from friends, sold by the student council to benefit various causes. When I was in college, my mom sent flowers a few times. My freshman year of college, when I was living in a real college dorm, my room was filled with flowers from parents, my friends, my roommate’s friends. It was nice. More importantly, it was about love. Not sex. Not desperation. Love.
To get depressed about not having a boyfriend on Valentine’s Day is to miss the entire point of the holiday in the first place. Saint Valentine (who, being a Catholic saint, would probably not approve of that garter ensemble you picked up from Victoria’s Secret, fyi) was a man who believed in love. He died a martyr because he married people in Catholic ceremonies during the Roman Empire. And while that’s a very romantic story, the part that goes overlooked in this whole story was that this was a man who died standing up for what he believed in. He believed so strongly in what he was doing that he put his life on the line to prove his devotion. And that is what’s beautiful about Valentine’s Day. When was the last time you felt that passionately about something? Most people wouldn’t put their credit card on the table for the person they’re desperately hoping will ask them to a Valentine’s dinner tonight.
St. Valentine didn’t settle. He didn’t lower his standards to fit some society’s ideas about how life should be. If he didn’t, why should any of us? And every time we feel that we should have a boyfriend, that we should have a date, every time we get depressed that we’re sitting at home on Valentine’s Day, or that we’re with a group of friends instead of that special someone, that’s exactly what we’re doing. Valentine’s Day is, at the end of the day, just another day. It’s not a mandate to try to conform yourself into what society dictates is the “right” behavior. St. Valentine didn’t do it, and now, once a year, people eat candy out of cardboard hearts in his name.
“Hey E. Happy Valentine’s Day!”
“Isn’t it just your favorite day?” E’s deadpan tone is dripping with sarcasm. And, to be honest, bitterness. Clearly, this wasn’t her favorite day at all.
For some, February 14 is a four-letter word. It’s a reminder that you’re alone, that you’re clearly going to die alone, that you might as well give it up now and start adopting cats.
For me, February 14th is just another day, only, on this day, you have a better excuse to eat chocolate. This sounds like sour grapes, I know, like I don’t want a valentine anyway. But it’s not. Valentine’s Day is usually only great for a select group of people. Hallmark, Russell Stover’s and the people who make those Mylar helium balloons. Other than those select corporations, I’ve never heard of anybody who had a GREAT Valentine’s Day. A nice day, a great dinner, something special, but a GREAT Valentine’s Day? It’s like a GREAT New Year’s Eve: try to find someone who had one. Nearly impossible.
When I was a kid, I used to love Valentine’s Day. My parents would buy me one of those red hearts full of chocolate. We would have to bring a shoebox into class that we would decorate with construction paper, markers, paper lace doilies, stickers, glitter glue, whatever our New York City public school PTA budget could provide, making beautiful mailboxes to hold all our cards. The night before Valentine’s Day, I would painstakingly print out the name of each and every classmate on my tiny valentines with pictures of Strawberry Shortcake or the Carebears and the cheesy little jokes that only an 8-year-old finds funny. We would wait all day until our class moms came in with cupcakes and juice and little bags of candy and we would run around and deliver all our valentines and eat and then, when we were all good and sugared up, the teacher would send us home to our parents.
When I got older, my mom would buy me Godiva chocolates in place of the drugstore hearts. I used to get cards from secret admirers in high school and carnations from friends, sold by the student council to benefit various causes. When I was in college, my mom sent flowers a few times. My freshman year of college, when I was living in a real college dorm, my room was filled with flowers from parents, my friends, my roommate’s friends. It was nice. More importantly, it was about love. Not sex. Not desperation. Love.
To get depressed about not having a boyfriend on Valentine’s Day is to miss the entire point of the holiday in the first place. Saint Valentine (who, being a Catholic saint, would probably not approve of that garter ensemble you picked up from Victoria’s Secret, fyi) was a man who believed in love. He died a martyr because he married people in Catholic ceremonies during the Roman Empire. And while that’s a very romantic story, the part that goes overlooked in this whole story was that this was a man who died standing up for what he believed in. He believed so strongly in what he was doing that he put his life on the line to prove his devotion. And that is what’s beautiful about Valentine’s Day. When was the last time you felt that passionately about something? Most people wouldn’t put their credit card on the table for the person they’re desperately hoping will ask them to a Valentine’s dinner tonight.
St. Valentine didn’t settle. He didn’t lower his standards to fit some society’s ideas about how life should be. If he didn’t, why should any of us? And every time we feel that we should have a boyfriend, that we should have a date, every time we get depressed that we’re sitting at home on Valentine’s Day, or that we’re with a group of friends instead of that special someone, that’s exactly what we’re doing. Valentine’s Day is, at the end of the day, just another day. It’s not a mandate to try to conform yourself into what society dictates is the “right” behavior. St. Valentine didn’t do it, and now, once a year, people eat candy out of cardboard hearts in his name.
posted by Still Hopeful @ 2:09 PM
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