A Pre-Valentine's Day Rant

I have a confession to make.

I love Valentine's Day. I love it. It is my favorite holiday of the year, surpassed only by Patriot's Day (better known as Marathon Monday), and that's only if I'm gonna be in Boston AND I'll get to pass out Gatorade.

I have been an unabashed lover of Valentine's Day for as long as I can remember--back since the days of doily hearts and foil stickers and tissue-paper covered shoeboxes filled with your classmates' Kermit the Frog Valentines Cards. As I've gotten older--and my Valentines cards have gotten a little more sophisticated--my love for the holiday has only grown.

I recognize that this puts me in a very small minority. People HATE Valentine's Day. Couples stress out about the pressure of making it romantic and complain about how it creates artificial expectations. Singles use it as an opportunity to binge eat, dress like a slob, drink too much and behave like bitter, mopey, angry people. Valentine's Day--it seems--brings out the curmudgeon in just about everyone.

I will admit, this year I almost caved. Being the sole champion of a holiday nearly everyone hates is discouraging. And for one week, I seriously considered putting down the gauntlet, putting on the Ani DiFranco and throwing myself a one-woman pity party while drowning my single woman sorrows in a tub of Rocky Road.

Here's the thing, though. I will not allow the horrible people writing Halmark cards and producing women's magazines to ruin my Valentine's Day. Just because they proclaim that Valentine's Day is all about hearts and flowers and romance and finding "the one" does not actually make it so. There IS a difference between how something is framed and what it actually can be.

My point is that there is a grain of goodness (I would even say greatness) to Valentine's Day. You just have to tap into it. That's true of a lot of things. Take Thanksgiving. I don't happen to think that celebrating genocide and manifest destiny makes for a very good holiday, but I'll take that whole bit about thinking about what I should be grateful for. It's the same with Valentine's Day.

I have wonderful friends. I have a great family. I love them all very much. So as Valentine's Day rolls around, you'd better believe I'll be celebrating that love--and I'll be letting them know. Don't sell love short just because it doesn't come wrapped in a box of chocolates or a bouquet of roses or an expensive candlelight dinner with your soul mate. Love is still love--it always will be--and we should honor and cherish it in all its forms.