When I was a freshman in college, I was in an irritating phase of pretending to hate males. Around this time that year, I made a sign of black construction paper and white crayon which read: "Crappy Valentine's Day." As if my cleverness weren't enough, I hung it in the window of my dorm bedroom, which was located on a sidewalk many people passed on their way to class every day. And attributable to an enigmatic HVAC, we kept our window open at all times, the better to hear the snickers and snark when they saw my love to the holiday. (This was also the year that we wrote backwards with dry erase markers on our kitchen window witty quotations and other nonsense, since it was beside a well-worn shortcut to the other dorms. I wish I would have counted the number of people who knocked and said something like "Right on!" as they passed by. These are things you love when you're 18, for reasons known to no one.)
So, two days after turning 27 years old, I am both amused and embarrassed by that public display, mostly because it's starting to feel cliché to hate boys and hate Valentine's Day, and to ironically offer to babysit, even if it is for the cutest boy in the world.
The truth is, I have never hated boys, I still don't, and though Valentine's Day is a little too much pink and red in the same space, how can I really hate a day that celebrates love in its many forms? Because, as Willie once said, "There's a whole lotta love in this house." It was a different house, under much different circumstances, but the sentiment is still true.
And I get a whole lotta love, too. My mom rules at holiday celebrations, and has always sent (on time, even) fabulous little gifts for whatever celebratory day comes next. My Valentine's treats always come packaged with my birthday present, and this year she sent a card from Hallmark, of course, with a smiling chipmunk holding a giant heart. On the back she wrote, "I think you don't love Valentine's Day so much, but I am always glad to have days to send love to my family." Aw. And, Rats! In spite of my apparent propensity to be alone for at least the next little while, my nice mom reminds me of my inner cheese, and I can believe that it's possible for all of us to get some lovin. I don't need my therapist to remind me that putting the sign in the window -- and telling myself (and anyone who will listen) that Valentine's Day is horrible -- is merely a device to cover up that I am sometimes pretty sad to be alone, and sometimes terrified that it's not temporary.
If my mom is reading this, I'm sure she'll be relieved to see in writing that I do want to be married, that my solitary trips to the symphony and the beach, and nights and weekends spent entirely with myself are bittersweet; I love my solitude, but I suspect I would want it siginificantly less if I found my own Benedick.
I'm happily going to be an aunt soon, and I have really vivid visions of myself being the cool aunt who is a competent and relatively happy single person, but whose parties with the nieces and nephews leave me sad about what could have been. It's not something I think about all day, but I get afraid sometimes that all my efforts to be a terrific alone person with a fabulous apartment are a formula for staying that way forever.
But that all sounds terribly depressing, and I'm really not depressed or bitter or even annoyed this year at the prospect of a calendar-mandated reminder. Occasionally, I'm made of equal parts fear and hope, but this year, in spite of my singleness, hope is winning out. Thanks, Mom, for reminding me. Let this serve as my official renunciation of hating V-Day. And of boys, wherever mine may be.
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