So, I had every intention of sitting down and writing an intense, heartfelt, outrageously sarcastic and cynical deliberation on Valentine’s Day. But the truth is, I kind of like Valentine’s Day. In fact, it used to sort of be my favorite holiday. For those of you who’ve taken the Stanford Ennegram “personality test,” you’ll not be surprised to know that I’m a “Four”—the type that gets lost in self-centeredness, lets her emotions rule her, believes no one truly gets her, and could, one day, find herself hopelessly addicted to the cheap thrills of trashy reality TV. Okay, I threw that last characteristic in, but my point is that Valentine’s Day was made for someone like me.
I remember in lower school constructing paper mailboxes for the onslaught of valentines from classmates. Most of the cards displayed our favorite cartoon characters—the Smurfs, Transformers, Strawberry Shortcake, etc., but every once in a while there would appear a heavily “mother assisted” red velvet heart with white satin and lace trim. I remember “decoding” the valentines from boys to see which ones were expressing a tacit love. A valentine depicting GI Joe thrusting his fist in the air and shouting, “You’re mine!” was very telling of a young boy’s affections. I exercised grave caution when addressing my valentines—distributing the sappy messages to my female classmates, lest I be accused of having a crush on some boy that, let’s face it, I probably did have.
In middle school, I distinctly remember Eric Martarella (whom the boys in my 6th grade class nicknamed Eric Fartasmella) giving me a red rose and a real card—not a picture of Tom and Jerry exchanging explosive boxes of chocolate—but an actual Hallmark card in which he had written a full-page note. I do not remember the contents of the note that now sits among old scrapbooks in my parents’ attic in Virginia, except one line that read, “there will always be a place for you in my heart.” I seriously thought I was going to get a marriage proposal that Valentine’s Day in 6th grade. We broke up the next day.
In high school, we had a tradition of giving color-coded carnations on Valentine’s Day. Red signified love, of course. No one ever got a red carnation. Pink signified friendship. And white (the most coveted) indicated that the recipient had a “secret admirer.” I’m pretty sure my older brother paid his friend to give me a white carnation my freshman year—but I carried that thing with pride nonetheless!
Once out of the world of school and organized displays of affection, Valentine’s Day gets a little more complex. For instance, it must be difficult for some guys to remember not to ask a woman out on February 14th, or the few days preceding, unless he actually wants to be with her for all eternity.
I suppose I’ve always loved the idea that there is a day set aside for people who are in love. Most holidays of the Valentine’s Day magnitude (St. Patrick’s Day, Cinco de Mayo, Fourth of July) are established to celebrate one thing—the amount of alcohol you can consume in a single day. Valentine’s Day seems to celebrate something a little more intimate and emotional. Ironically, since I've been happily married to the man of my dreams, Valentine's Day has completely lost its allure. I think the day appealed to me in my single years because I was excited about who might suddenly emerge. Who might, as Nick Carraway says of Gatsby, "be delivered from the womb of his purposeless splendor." The idea that some “admirer” would materialize and covertly express his devotion with a Go-Bots valentine or a white carnation was infinitely more stirring than the current secured affections of my spouse. But, as I’ve aged, I’ve also begun to realize that I much prefer the sanctuary of a true friendship to the cheap thrill of an ugly white flower.
Happy Valentine's Day!
