Verbose Valentine

Are you a...

* Vegetative Valentine (enjoying doing nothing)
* Velvety Valentine (smooth talker)
* Venerable Valentine (considering yourself worthy of reverence)
* Vengeful Valentine (I'll show him, after that lousy gift LAST year)
* Versatile Valentine (fancy dinner one year, leftovers the next -- whatever!)
* Virtual Valentine (sweetie's out of town)
* Veneered Valentine (all about the surface show)
* Vivacious Valentine (irrepressibly spreading joy)
* Vacuous Valentine (what? Valentine's Day? Huh?)

Okay, so I've had my fun with the thesaurus...

Anyway, back in the day, we used to spend lots of money on a fancy dinner and have gifts and (my) high expectations along for the ride on Valentine's Day (and birthday, anniversary, etc.). My poor husband wasn't judged "romantic enough" half the time, because I had in my mind that a "romantic" evening meant that at THAT dinner we HAD to stop talking about work/life/normal stuff and just GAZE into each other's eyes and say sweet things. No pressure there! Of course the rest of the time I just loved him because of who he is, and because he loves me and is my best friend -- and usually I'm thrilled that he ISN'T all dorky and googly eyed. Somehow I used to think he was supposed to morph into this poetic guy when the calendar instructed him to. I've finally realized that when he speaks truly from the heart (which he does do regularly), it means so much more than if he checks the calendar and says "oh, I'd better come up with something good to do/say next week!"

Not that I have anything against going out to dinner and gazing in each others eyes and saying sweet things. In fact, it's wonderful. It just is more real when it just happens. Some date nights turn out that way. Others are more "best friend"ish. It's just the "ready, set, go--- be romantic!" thing that has become silly in my eyes.

And then there used to be the stress of him buying me expensive gifts that weren't really "right" -- and then me not wanting to hurt his feelings by taking them back, but not wanting us to spend money on something I didn't like/didn't fit/etc. It's nice to tell each other what we feel, when we feel so moved -- and then go shopping together! Freeing. No stress. I've got the best guy in the world -- why make him prove it on a set schedule? He proves it every day of our lives together. I've got my Valentine already and he's nicer than anything marketed by Hallmark.

And it only took me 13 years of marriage to figure that out... Hmmmmm... I'm a swift one alright...

Okay -- no more mushy stuff. This is about as personal as I get on the world wide web.

And for tomorrow, I've got some very little things to give the family -- Valentine's Pez dispensers for the kids and a big chocolate Symphony bar for my sweetie. And a pack of $0.99 stickers that I'm going to make some little Valentines with on white paper. Pure joy.