Roses are red. Violets are blue. I’m a lover conflicted about Valentine’s Day. How about you?
When I was an adolescent, my middle school sold pink carnations on Valentine’s Day. The idea was that the boys could buy them for their girlfriends (or desired girlfriends). Every year, I watched other girls walk with one arm strung around their boyfriends’ waist, the other gently holding a $1 dyed carnation.
In three years of this ritual, I never received one. If I’m honest, it bothered me, but only a little.
When I was 19, a coworker at the ice cream parlor where I worked part-time asked me to cover a shift on Valentine’s Day so she could go out with her boyfriend. I got paid $6 an hour to scoop ice cream for lovers who strolled in from the freezing Michigan streets. I came home from my shift with a pint of ice cream and opened my journal. I ate my ice cream and wrote about the surprise I felt that I really didn’t mind how I’d spent the day.
I’ve had many Valentine’s Days with lovers, and many without. But even when I was tied to someone, I never gave the day much thought.
To me, love has always been about more than a hastily written card or prix fixe menu.
It’s not that I don’t love a good romantic gesture – I absolutely do. But what makes a gesture romantic is when it actually comes from the heart.
Ask any of my lovers: My number one trigger is feeling like a relationship is an obligation. It is the antithesis to what I believe love asks of us.
While we don’t get to choose who we love, love itself is defined by actions that affirm that choiceless choice. I don’t have a conscious choice in who makes my heart flutter, but I do have a conscious choice to move toward – or away – from a person based on how they impact my life.
In other words, I choose to bask in romantic gestures when they’re spontaneous and authentic, rather than when they’re expected.
Because the more weight we put on the perfunctory rituals of love, the less room we have for recognizing when love exists in rituals led by the heart.
So buy the chocolate – but only because your lover adores chocolate (organic, 80% dark for me, thank you very much).
Spring for flowers – but only because you get joy from seeing your beloved smile (in-season, locally grown bouquets are the quickest way to my heart).
Go out for dinner – but only because sharing a meal together brings you closer (my dream date is at that hole-in-the-wall place I would have driven right past).
Those kinds of gestures are what create real connection, rather than the staged, Hallmark kind.
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