(Or at least pick them from my garden…)
I shared this on Facebook a year ago, but I thought it needed revisiting and possibly a little bit of revision, so here goes:
I’ve always had a complicated relationship with Valentine’s Day. Well, maybe not always. As a child, there was not much better than frosted sugar cookies and a red Kool-aid mustache to accompany the hand-decorated shoe boxes into which we took turns placing our Care Bear and Strawberry Shortcake Valentines. If we were truly lucky, there would be a heart-shaped lollipop or a box of Conversation Hearts taped to the outside of most of the envelopes. By the end of the day, we would examine our over-flowing boxes, each containing exactly 31 Valentines – twenty-nine from our fellow classmates, one from ourselves since we were not allowed to skip boxes, and one from our teacher. At home, I would rifle through my Whitman’s Sampler from Mom and Dad, devouring anything containing nuts or caramel, while tossing the orange and coconut cream in the trash, because eww.
Valentine’s Day was awesome.
In the fifth grade, Valentine’s Day was ratcheted up a notch when a boy, whose name was something like Jack Jackson or John Johnson or Will Williams (but not), showed up at school with a teddy bear and heart-shaped balloon for me. Having never truly paid much attention to the boy with the same first and last name before, I was instantly smitten with this new proclamation of love. I did not mind that his intended recipient had turned this gift down earlier in the day and that I was second in line. He became my boyfriend for the next week or two. It was the best Valentine’s Day in my almost eleven years.
In the years that followed, it was difficult for anyone to match that simple Valentine’s magic that John Johnson or Rob Roberts (or whatever his name was) had sparked in me. No matter how many candy grams I received in middle school or pink carnations in high school (but not the dreaded white ones of friendship!), I always seemed to be unlucky in love around Valentine’s Day….or come to think of it, just about any major holiday. I was a serial dater in high school, but by January, the thrill was gone, and Cupid refused to show up for me until after long after Valentine’s Day had passed.
Except for my senior year. Well, sort of. I had dated a sweet boy for several months, and the January doldrums hit yet again, and we broke up. Not to be dramatic (but what 17 year-old girl is not dramatic?), but I was devastated. I managed my way through the school day as I watched my friends trade Valentine’s gifts with their boyfriends, but by the end of the day, I was emotionally spent and just wanted the day to be over.
Around 5 p.m., there was a knock on my front door, and behind that door was a hand holding the most beautiful arrangement of roses I had ever seen. My dad, not typically one to indulge in such lavish purchases, must have really stepped it up this year. Either that, or perhaps he was in the dog house and trying to get back in Mom’s good graces.
Except that the roses were not for my mom….they were for me. I opened the card to reveal that they were from my ex – the one who had just broken my heart a couple of weeks earlier. What could this possibly mean? Did he want to get back together? Did he recognize that the decision to break up was like the worst idea he had ever had? Did he still love me? Suddenly this day had turned around.
Immediately, I phoned my very best guy friend to share my news and to get some perspective. My excitement was instantly extinguished when I heard the discomfort in his voice. In the background, I heard a distant giggling.
“Brian, who is there?” I asked.
“Oh, that’s Angela,” he replied. Of course, his girlfriend would be with him on Valentine’s day. In the distance, I heard multiple voices carrying on a conversation….a male voice that I recognized and another female voice that I did not.
“Brian”, I asked incredulously, “WHO else is there?”.
The phone went silent for what seemed like an hour, and then I heard Brian release a quiet sigh. He whispered, “John is here.” My ex.
“And WHO else? I know there is another girl there.”
“Allison is here, too,” he reluctantly replied. Allison was Angela’s best friend, and I had seen her as a threat the entire time I dated John. She was cute and fun and flirty, and why wouldn’t he want to date her? Apparently, they had waited until Valentine’s Day to go out on their first date, which just so happened to be a double date with my very best friend in the world and his girlfriend.
Tears immediately sprung to my eyes, and my mouth forgot how to form words as I slammed the phone down (a concept, by the way, that our teens have absolutely no knowledge of) without a goodbye. Not only was I devastated that my false hope of reconciliation was never going to happen, I was livid that my best friend in life had been a part of setting him up with another girl.
I’m still not sure why I received 13 roses from my ex that day, although I guess the number of roses I received should have been my first clue that something was amiss. Perhaps he had really gotten ahead of things and pre-ordered before we broke up, although he did not strike me as someone who thought through much of anything that he did. Perhaps his feelings toward me were still complicated….or maybe he just felt sorry for me. If I had to guess, his unassuming and precious mother probably had ordered them for me, not knowing we were no longer together. I may never know.
I would like to say that I tossed those roses out the minute my heart broke a second time, but I don’t think that was the case. Rather, if I recall, I allowed them to wither and die, just like my feelings toward John eventually did. (As a side note, I did eventually completely reconcile with my best friend, and I briefly reconciled with John long enough to take him to senior prom later in the year. So all was not completely lost).
From that day on, Valentine’s Day has been dead to me. Okay, not really. But my feelings towards Valentine’s Day were forever altered that day (I say this while wearing a cheugy Valentine’s sweater, so take this with a grain of salt). I’m still a hopeless romantic, and I have tried, but often failed, to catch the magic of Valentine’s Day again, and that’s okay. When my children were younger, I was able to relive the simple joy of the Valentine’s box, only with Dora the Explorer and Bob the Builder cards this go around.
(I even forced them to do cheesy Valentine’s Day shoots each year. I know they love me for that.)
And now that they are older, I do not want to squelch their Valentine’s dreams, but I also want them to know the importance of showing up daily for their people…not just on a day that Hallmark (if they are even still a thing) has designated to spend 75% of their marketing budget on.
And just in case they happen to have a crappy and lonely Valentine’s Day (or two or ten), I want them to know that they are not alone. It could always be worse (refer to the above), and one day you will laugh about it.
And for my baby girl, do not wait on a man to buy you flowers. Buy all of the flowers your heart desires, but just wait until February 15 when they are half-price. If Miley can do it, we all can.
Or even better, go pick them from the yard. It is, after all, daffodil season, which simply means that the best is yet to come.
That’s what I call winning on Valentine’s Day.
But seriously, happy Valentine’s day!
And now that they are older, I do not want to squelch their Valentine’s dreams, but I also want them to know the importance of showing up daily for their people…not just on a day that Hallmark (if they are even still a thing) has designated to spend 75% of their marketing budget on.
And just in case they happen to have a crappy and lonely Valentine’s Day (or two or ten), I want them to know that they are not alone. It could always be worse (refer to the above), and one day you will laugh about it.
And for my baby girl, do not wait on a man to buy you flowers. Buy all of the flowers your heart desires, but just wait until February 15 when they are half-price. If Miley can do it, we all can.
Better yet, go in the front yard, and pick daffodils. There’s no better reminder of new beginnings than a daffodil. Maybe there’s a reason they bloom for us around Valentine’s Day.
That’s what I call winning on Valentine’s Day.
But seriously, happy Valentine’s day!
I would choose to end this post here, but a few days after I originally posted it, I received this message from my friend B and felt it needed to be included:
“Ok, so I read your Valentines post and it broke my heart a little. Ok, a lot. Isn’t it funny how those teenage hurts can stay with us and affect our outlook for years to come? It goes without saying, but I’m sorry 17-year-old Brian was such a jerk (okay, I may have edited this just a little). If only I’d know then which relationships were the important ones, that should be protected and nurtured. Spoiler alert, John wound up dating Angela after I went to college, so those were not the important relationships I’m speaking of. Anyway, I’m thankful for you and all the great, non-Valentines Day memories we share.”
Another spoiler alert: NONE of us ended up together. We all ended up with who God intended us to be with. And that is a Valentine’s miracle.
– And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. 1 Corinthians 13:13