Adulting On Valentines Day

When I was a kid, I loved Valentine’s Day. My Mom would always save the shoe boxes that came with our new school shoes, so that when February 14th rolled around, we could convert them into containers that served as Valentine card and candy holders. I remember gluing paper heart doilies, hearts made out of construction paper, and even candy hearts onto my shoe box. I couldn’t wait for my classmates to drop some Mickey Mouse, Cinderella, or adorable puppy Valentines into the slits on my shoe box lid. And since it is better to give than receive, I’ll be super spiritual and say that I couldn’t wait to fill their Valentine boxes as well.

Nowadays, I guess I am too old for Elmer’s glue, candy hearts, and glorified shoe boxes. The fun innocence of VDay often escapes me, and now I just seem to bemoan the silly little game adult women play with their men:

Either show up with flowers and candy and movie tickets, or you’re in the dog house.

Great. Lovely. Not.

It’s like women everywhere suddenly have a one day license to manipulate their husbands and boyfriends into doing something special for them. And those of us who don’t want to play come across as unloving. Or unlovable.

Sooooo …. is that to say that I am unloving and unlovable for having low expectations and freeing my husband from the “duty” of loving me? If he genuinely wants to love me with candy and flowers and movie tickets, then I’m much obliged. But if he does it solely because he has to, or is culturally expected to, then save the money, honey, for another day when your heart is in it.

So love, to me, is tricky on VDay. There’s an automatic question that hangs in the air when the flowers pop out from behind a beloved’s back. And then there’s the question of what women are to do for men on this day of love. because do guys like any of this ridiculousness? Any at all?? Why, instead of letting love flow naturally, do we choose one day out of the year that it must happen or else we’re all pegged as pagans of some sort who deserve to bunk with the pigs? I mean dogs.

Dog … pig … what’s the diff sometimes?

Anybody who has been making love for any length of time will know that spontaneity makes for a greater, kinder, more genuine show of affection. Every couple has likely scheduled lovemaking at one point in their relationship, because kids and jobs and the mad world of sports and piano recitals happen, therefore essentials like lovemaking and sleep don’t. The blatant truth is that if you don’t make time for it, marital intimacy becomes non-existent. But there’s something about letting lovemaking just happen when it’s least expected that makes it all the more pleasant.

Now. To be fair. I must clarify that if Shaun brings me flowers and movie tickets for Valentine’s Day, I am not to jiggle sour jowls at him, assume the worst, and believe he is doing so because he’s been pressured to do so, or is culturally expected to “surprise” me. Oh, that’s the other common, scathing attitude I loathe …

Pour on the gifts, honey (or else!) and in return, I will act surprised, as if I’m oblivious to the fact that I’ve put the fear of God into you and if you don’t deliver and deliver well, it’s possible you’re not getting any nooky for weeks on end. Or however long it takes for me to feel justice has been served to your cheap, sorry self.

Ugh.

Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not boast. It’s not rude. It doesn’t insist on it’s own way. It’s not irritable or resentful. It bears all things. Believes all things. Hopes all things.

We are to love in a way that is true, not fake. True love gives a gift because of genuine kindness, without resentment for “having” to give it. True love accepts a gift with kindness, not rudeness. And it believes all things, including that our hands clasp a bundle of begonias because of our mate’s genuine desire to love … even if that love falls on February 14th. And in the event that the begonias were not given out of a genuine desire to show genuine affection? Then we can simply hope all things, including that next year will be better, more sincere. And plagued with less fear of (wo)man.

Even though I feel like it is at times, Vday is not a curse. But it is a day that both men and women need to be on guard about. Is the love we’re exhibiting “twue wuv” as the impressive clergyman on Princess Bride would say? Or is it merely a faux display of love wrapped in invisible (or not so invisible) resentment or dread? Is the love we’re being given received with a heart that believes all things, and hopes all things? Or do we assume the worst, suspicious that the gift is only given because there are high hopes of nooky later that night? (And why is that a bad thing, anyway? Do men just have to give and give, never getting anything in return? Men like sex. Get over it.)

Valentine’s Day, in my view, is an infantine holiday. But since, by cultural standards, we haaaave to do this thing even as grownups, could we at least try to be mature about it? Maybe even think outside the Russel Stover assorted chocolates candy box and tailor the gifts we give toward the real wants of our beloved (unless your beloved enjoys Russel Stovers, in which case, carry on)? I know my admonitions sound dangerously close to adulting. But in what things are we not called to put off our old selves, which belongs to our former manner of life which is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of our minds, and to put on our new selves, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness? (Eph. 4:22-24)

We are called to put off our old, immature ways. To be adults, even on VDay. So off with the insincerity. Off with the judgmental spirit. On toward clemency, which in the thesaurus is listed as many other great things:

compassion

indulgence

mercy

charity

endurance

fairness

forbearance

gentleness

grace

humanity

justness

kindness