On Valentine's Day

[annwfyn]

Ooooh...I already wrote this ramble. Look!. It went up last year.

I think it goes mostly like this.

There are two main objections to Valentine's Day, raised vociferously and articulately by a large number of people. These objections are as follows:


"Valentine's Day is tacky and commercialised. It encourages fake sentimentality. Why should you only be able to tell the one you love that you love them on February 14th. You should express this love every day of the year, in a much more original and meaningful manner."


Every time I see this argument, a number of the same thoughts run through my head. The first thought is to take a look at the name of the person saying this. On occasion I am suddenly reminded of the Significant Other of this upstanding advocate for daily romance sitting on my sofa, and muttering darkly about the fact that this paragon of daily affection has actually been known to forget birthdays, anniversaries, and actually tends to not show affection until the second bottle of port.

The second, and less hypocritical thought, is to look at my own love life and work out how often I really show my long suffering boyfriend what I truly feel for him. The somewhat sad answer is 'not nearly often enough'. It isn't that I don't adore Jeremiah, from the top of his purple dyed head, to the tips of his new rock clad feet. It's just...well...real life gets in the way.

I don't tell him I love him in the mornings, because he's often still dozing when I get up to head off towards college. In the evenings there are often other people around, and I suspect that ksirafai, molez and castorlion would rapidly develop insulin related conditions if they were exposed to a nightly syrupy display of flowers, chocolate, and romantic displays of affection. I don't regularly shower Jeremiah with little gifts and thoughtful tokens of my esteem, after Nationwide's last helpful letter on the topic of unauthorised overdraft charges, and anyway, he is tricky enough to buy for at the best of times.

So, most of the time we just bimble along, affectionately and happily enough, but it's pretty easy to take each other for granted, and I rather like the idea that occasionally something happens to jolt me out of my contented complacency, and push me towards some of the slightly bigger gestures that we'd make when we were first causing mass social upheaval and chaos by getting together.




"Valentine's Day is horrible for all those who don't have a boyfriend/girlfriend/secret stalker. It makes them feel bad. And that sucks. Grrrr. It's all commercialised nonsense anyway, and those who don't celebrate it are better people for it."


This rant always tends to trigger off a far more dangerous rant in me.

You see, I'm very aware that there are holidays out there which are horribly exclusionary towards those of us who are unable to participate in them. I know there are holidays which are designed as days when loved ones can be spoiled and shown appreciation, but often only succeed in making hundreds, and probably thousands of people feel like crap. I know there are allegedly happy holidays, which for some are sinkholes of misery and a horrible awareness of a big gaping gap in their lives.

Has anyone out there ever spent time with me on Mother's Day?

It sucks. For the first three years after Mum died I used to burst into tears at least once on Mother's Day. The weeks running up to Mother's Day were this constant, nasty, nagging ache as I saw cards, posters, TV ads, all of which seemed to say 'you know, your mum died and you're alone. Look at what everyone else has!'

My sister has a far worse tale of someone at her work asking her what she was doing for Mother's Day. When she said 'nothing', not wanting to get into our family trauma, she was treated to a big comedy rant on 'god, you're an awful daughter, I feel sorry for your mother, you've got to do something nice for Mother's Day' which only stopped when she burst into tears in the middle of her office.

If you've lost a parent, Mother's Day, and Father's Day, are horrible miserable days.

So far, I've never seen anyone other than me seriously talk about banning them. No newspaper columnists bitch about it in national papers. Come to think of it, no one suggests banning Christmas because it makes it really sucky to be Jewish and not be able to get to the shops coz they're all closed for someone else's holiday. No one suggests banning birthdays, coz those Jehovah's Witnesses kids have a more miserable time seeing everyone else's presents.

We're not all one big homogenous mass. All people are not the same. Everyone's life experiences are different, and in many ways, any celebration will always highlight the lack of that selfsame thing to celebrate for another. That doesn't mean that we should never celebrate. In fact, I think we should celebrate more things, give everyone their day to feel sparkly.

And I'll just keep plotting my guerilla raids on Clinton's Cards every March.

So. That's my ramble in defense of Valentine's Day. Mostly the same as last year. Maybe I'll come up with something cool to say next year.

(by the way, this new found appreciation for Valentine's Day may have something to do with the vase of red roses sat on top of televion and the box of Thornton's chocolates in the kitchen. Those really did make me happy...)