GOT LOVE
I spent a decade of my life as someone's sweetheart, but aside from the earliest of early days there wasn't much sweet involved between these young hearts as they ran free and trampled each other's nearly to death. Valentine's Day was so annually unexceptional that I cannot recall even set a mood here as to what kind of things went on for nine consecutive February 14ths. The details are sketchy.
I have a vague feeling that V-Day in our house consisted of me making dinner (a nightly occurrence, so not much special there) and maybe some McLovin'? I don't remember much in the way of gifts, and certainly never received anything particularly thoughtful or super-nice or in the easiest packaging on the eyes known to (wo)man (think blue boxes with white ribbons and black lettering--ah, happy place.) I think he usually gave me flowers--and maybe a card? Year one I believe it was when I didn't get real flowers--I got a sleazy purple thong cut for an Amazon woman that was presented as if it was a flower--in this case a rose by any other name did not smell as sweet. The sole purpose of this gift was D's first legit visit to ye olde X-rated shoppe and he was too cheap and too chicken to get me anything else, so this is how I went. I tried to be nice about it, but I don't think it worked out so well. I think I still have them somewhere, more intact than my virtue. The second V-day he upped the game with some VS lingerie. I put it on, and it stayed on because we ended up in some kind of tiff. I do not know what kind of tiff this was, I only remember that I had tattooed myself with little hearts and flowers for what I thought would be fun and ended up lying in bed staring at the ceiling in a red strappy camisole with matching underpants, listlessly smoking and scraping said tattoos off with my fingernails while the angry young man snored beside me. Now that's what I call love!
Subsequent years--I think flowers, and a card--maybe? It never really bugged me that I can recall, probably because the one-two-punch of Christmas and my birthday the months prior still had me reeling from the blow of how much they, well, blew. I am pretty certain that for my part I followed the annual tradition set out by my family years hence, and always made sure there was presents and chocolates and cards from both me and the pup to say hey, on this day, guess what, we extra-special love you, ya lucky bastard! One year my bestie called to wish me a happy day and informed me she had gotten flowers from some strange boy destined to be her husband. I did not get flowers that day, I do recall, because Big D "forgot." He got shrimp scampi. Jerk.
And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make. The last night I spent under our shared roof was Valentine's Day. I cried all night and slept with the dog (a gift that would keep on giving over the course of the next few months, albeit under a different roof--moral is, I got the dog, aka the best boy I ever knew, and eventually you just can't cry anymore.)
What did I learn from all this? I am not even sure there are Six Sigma rules to apply. I think I learned that one probably should not spend ten years entangled in a life with someone who would actually forget to buy your naive, romantically inclined 20-something self a bouquet from a gas station at least on V-Day, let alone not give you a housewifery night off by taking you to eat somewhere that did not feature televisions on the wall to look at and thus effectively eclipse all conversation, and maybe do something more thoughtful than bang you (maybe) as a nod to your long-term love. I also learned that by my thirties I was through with love and never going to fall again, and that that was okay, and that what I liked best about Valentine Hearts Day was that I loved me, and plenty of other awesome people did, and that was kind of the whole point. Except then I did kinda sorta fall in love again, and then there was more V-Day dancing around, and again the expectations were simply not exceeded. They were not in point of fact even met. Sometimes that is just how life is like that proverbial box of choclates. Not only do you never know what you are going to get--sometimes what you get must be spit out of your mouth immediately.
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