A Day for Love

I've got to admit, I'm a little on the fence about this whole Valenine's business (and make no mistake, a business it is and a very thriving one if Facebook is at all good at keeping its finger on the pulse of society.) Let me preface this by saying I have been with my one true love for almost twelve years now, been blissfully married for almost seven. It is just a tad bit possible that maybe I've become burnt out on this day of love, or at the very least a little jaded by the self proclaimed Hallmark Holiday. Even the very word Valentine seems to drip obnoxious pink hearts and quasi creepy toddlers with wings, and you can't help but feel some kind of pressure to love extra hard on this most gushy of holidays.

Twelve years ago I lived for holidays like this. To me it was one more way my boyfriend (turned husband) could prove his love and devotion to me, and let me tell you, he did it spectacularly. I got a three feet tall card with sweet words that edified everything I hoped for our relationship. We got dressed up, I got blindfolded (don't be dirty, we were only fifteen) and I was driven around for nigh on forty-five minutes only to end up at a restaurant ten minutes from the house. (He's sneaky like that.) It was perfectly romantic and all the things fifteen year old girls brand new to a relationship dream of.

Then there was the year he took me to our favorite fancy schmancy grocery store and we picked out breads, cheeses, handmade creme brulees and other such "grown up" foods and had a romantic evening in. Even while deployed to Iraq for two consecutive V-Days he managed to send flowers, pajama grams and romantic cards. Each year I was sure he'd never be able to outdo himself, and each year he somehow, amazingly, managed.

As we got older our relationship took on the shape of almost all "mature" relationships. Our love expanded, contracted, ebbed and flowed with the joys and traumas that any marriage must endure. We grew comfortable in our love. Less needy, more capable and confident that what we had together was real and lasting, though hardly ever easy. Fast forward to Valentine's '09. We were a mere 2 weeks into parenthood for the first time and in fact had just brought home our little Valentine not even a week prior. Life, and maybe even marriage, as we'd known it had ended though we couldn't have known it at the time. It was the first time Valentine's Day wasn't such a big deal. The first year that I wasn't the only gal in my husband's life. Truth be told we were too high on the love a new little person gave us to even remember the lover's day as anything more than, well, just a day.

It was somewhere in that time that I started up the "Valentine's Day is just another Hallmark holiday" rhetoric. I told myself that we don't need one day in particular to show each other love, we try our hardest to make that known every day of every year. We have a child now, we've been together for almost half our lifetime, we're busy and tired and isn't Valentine's Day really just a day for all of those newish couples who still ride the whole "PDA" train? I belong to a special class of 20 something parents who sometimes find candle lit dinners and lingerie more work than pleasure. I belong to the class of women who, if given a choice between diamond earrings or a Tylenol PM and a night off from baby duty would gladly choose a night of peace.

Despite all of that I had decided that this year, come Sunday night, I would make my husband a romantic dinner, put the baby to bed early and spend it loving the man who has loved me through bed head, birth and all of the messiness that has come since. However Sunday was spent with him at the soccer field, then family Targeting and grocery shopping. In short, life happened. So instead my chef of a husband chose two lovely steaks for us to cook tonight, together. Last night, instead of candles and soft music he made us a cheese and cracker plate and curled up on the couch with me to watch a (decidedly unromantic) movie.

Now it occurs to me that maybe I had it all wrong, or all right. At the end of the day I'm just a girl trying to find the sexy romantic wife inside of the mother/housekeeper/personal counselor/best friend. I get it wrong more often than I get it right though a good majority of my way has been paved with good intentions. As I snuggled the boy I've been in love with longer than I've known myself I see that I've also gotten it oh so right. My husband is my best friend because we've spent every single day making our love count. I don't need to make one day an official day of love. I want to. I want him to know that while the wife in me has to struggle to come out and play more these days than in the past, I still love him with the pure and open heart of a fifteen year old girl every second of every day. Our marriage may have changed two years ago, but it has all been for the best.

 Tonight we will put the baby to bed, cook a romantic dinner and spend one whole evening just being us, because we all need a day where we try extra hard to fall in love a little more. It can't hurt right? I may even light a candle or two.

I often talk about how fast time flies. When everything in your life is right the moments tend to slip past, falling through our fingers as tiny grains of sand and felt not one by one, but as one silky whole. For me each grain of sand is cherished, but seldom do I have the time or the wherewithal to notice how I might be changing. I can't see it as it's happening but I have found myself thinking back to the person I was, say, five years ago.

The biggest pieces of me, the core pieces that make me essentially who I am are all the same. I'm still conservative politically, I still love shoes and thunderstorms. I'm still impatient, though maybe not to the extreme I used to be. I still love to travel, still enjoy a good glass of wine. Thanks to a lot of hard work and commitment I'm still married to the same amazing man.

Five years ago these were the things that defined me. Now they're just facts about me. Before I had my daughter I wore 3 inch heels several times a week and swore I'd continue to do so after I had a baby. I drank girly drinks a few times a week, dreamed of being a published author and thought Tiffany's was the best place on earth.

I've since traded my heels for practical flats (though still love my red Baker's pumps with an intense passion.) I handle sippy cups far more often than martini glasses and most nights am too tired to stay up past nine AND drink a glass of wine. I still care about the world at large, very much in fact. But most days the most important world is the one here, in my home, that I've worked very hard to create.

The older I get, the simpler my tastes. It takes less to make me happy, less to fulfill me. I don't care to live in a mansion with a wing for each member of my family. I can't be bothered with status quos, rat races and labels. My heart is at its happiest being with the people I love, doing the things I love.

That being said, I still think it'd be awesome to write something someone cares about someday. And I sure wouldn't say no to some Tiffany's diamonds.