Valentine’s Day already?

*This is a post I wrote 10 years ago for my first blog, Saucy40Mom. The best thing about writing your stories down is that in the re-reading, they allow you to time travel back to various places in your evolvement and chuckle gratefully that you’re not where you were then. In 10 years I’ve done a lot of evolving, but I still believe Valentine’s Day is a crock. Don’t get me wrong- it’s not the day, it’s just the pressure it puts on people to make a thing more than a thing. February 14th is another day on the calendar. If you want to make the day about love, great! Just don’t confuse love with thinking it’s about what’s bought or done for you, or you are bound to be disappointed. Read on and you’ll see that it took me awhile to learn that. But that’s okay. Some of us are slow learners, but we always get where we’re meant to be right on time. *

Saucy40mom is a lover. She loves romance and drama and passion. Especially passion. Especially the don’tyoudareopenyourmouthtospeak-justslammeupagainstthewalland kissmelikeyou’regoingtodraintheverylifebloodfromme passion. Loves it. But Valentine’s Day? Not so much. Never has. Saucy40mom has not been without a man in her life since she was 14 years old, so there’ve been plenty of opportunities in these past 29 years for the tides to turn one way or the other and the way they’ve generally turned was not in SM’s favor. Who else do you know that has been dumped on VD by 3 different people in 3 entirely different times and situations? Now granted, 2 of these incidents occurred in high school, so let’s not bash these young men as they were, after all, young, and were behaving accordingly. Still, it smarted at the time, as everyone else was getting their carnations that they had special ordered from the honor society Valentine’s Day carnation sale and giving them out to their crushes and SM was carnation-less and humiliated, holding whatever “I don’t want to go with you anymore, but I don’t want to feel guilty about dumping you on Valentine’s Day” trinket (i’m remembering a 2 inch little stuffed bear with a tiny heart t-shirt and a piece of Avon jewelry that most likely his mother had received as a free bonus for having a large order) dispensed upon the dismissal. And that was just the first breakup. The second was not as bad considering this particular young man was an old soul whom I’d been friends with since second grade and he was nothing if not diplomatic. In his case, it wasn’t a matter of, “get the hell away from me, I just can’t stand the sight of you” -at least not at that point 😉 – he just didn’t like being committed to one person. In retrospect we should have all stayed free agents as teenagers. Which I’m pretty sure I articulated quite clearly to him before he charmed me into breaking my vow of never dating him because he was my best guy friend and I didn’t want to lose that. But I digress…  So sure, being a free agent was the truth, but I’d have had to have been an idiot to be unaware of the UNSPOKEN truth: Boy chased and chased, caught girl, fun’s up, GAME OVER. And the reason I know that is because SM also loves the chase. SM was born with way more than her share of testosterone, but that is a post of it’s own, best left for another day. Anyway, breakup number three was none other than SaucyHusband during our 2nd year of courtship. I would love to tell you that SH broke up with SM in a heated, jealousy raged argument over an alleged showing of affections from another man, but like I just said, SM tells it like it is: HE JUST COULDN’T FIGURE OUT FOR SURE HOW HE FELT. Oh for pissake, if I had a dime for every time I’ve heard that line come out of a man’s mouth I would own my own magazine and this would be my monthly column you were reading right now. What was my guilt-ridden trinket this time? Okay, but you’re not going to like it: A Holly Hobbie valentine card and a box of Turtles. Yes, I said Holly Hobbie. If I could travel back in time and relive that scene, here’s how I would handle it now: I’d rip Holly Hobbie’s nauseating little hat into 2 pieces, dump those damn turtles over his head and flee the scene looking for a man who wanted to keep his trap shut and press me up against a wall somewhere. We don’t ever have to say a word, baby, I promise. SaucyHusband eventually (2 days later, in fact) figured out how he felt, but naturally, some Valentine’s Day damage had been done.

Eventually it became time for a Valentine’s Day change of perspective. After all, I believe The Secret is correct, and all of these incidents came about due to the attitude I was putting out into the universe. I don’t want a bad attitude inspired by a commercial notion of what romance and love are “supposed” to be. I want passion! And truthfully, I don’t think I’m alone. So let’s just make Valentine’s Day easy: go grab the object of your affections, keep your mouth shut and just find a nice wall somewhere. Enjoy!