Be My Valentine...

Ahhhhhh February 14^th. Valentines Day. Love and romance. Kisses and candles.

That magical day of the year when your Facebook feed is filled with nothing but pictures of red roses (long stemmed and in a box of course!) chocolates wrapped in pink foil and fluffy white teddy bears clutching fluffy red hearts emblazoned with ‘I love you!’ and Be Mine!’

Christmas I love. Birthdays I adore. I can even get excited over Easter. But Valentines? No thanks. This blessed day fills me more with awkward teenage memories and thoughts of inadequacy than it does love and romance. Needless to say, not something I feel the need to celebrate.

I was a gangly, awkward, skinny teen. Shy beyond belief. Sweet 16 and never been kissed with a crippling crush on a long lashed childhood friend. I was all frizzy hair and freckles singing in a choir whilst the popular girls hung out in a cloud of smoke in the bathroom. I was tennis on a Saturday afternoon; those other girls were netball on a Saturday morning. I was a knee lengthed school skirt, those other girls? Well they wore minis, minis with a hint of a g-string poking out the top (that particular sartorial choice I will never understand). When it came to February 14^th? Well I was the girl pretending to be engrossed in a textbook whilst the roses were delivered, feigning nonchalance whilst inwardly thinking ‘ahhh well, there’s always next year...’

I did dabble in Valentines festivities once as a teenager. We sat there he and I, perched on steel chairs outside the local Pizza Hut, another couple with us, munching away on delicacies straight out of the box. My gift (most excitedly and gratefully received) was one of those previously mentioned white teddy bears accompanied with flowers picked hurriedly from his mothers garden and wrapped in paper from his mothers vast gift cupboard. That other couple? They went on to have the most romantic wedding I have ever been to. Me? I went to on to a slew of Valentines nights spent alone with the box set of ‘Friends’ a baked potato and an endless deluge of text messages from friends, disguised as thoughtful and caring but let’s be honest...reeking of pity.

This year however felt a little different. I didn’t cringe when Valentines themed chocolate boxes started popping up in the supermarket. I didn’t roll my eyes when walking past a restaurant advertising romantic dinners for two. I didn’t angrily delete Valentines themed emails that dared to arrive in my inbox. And interestingly I started to notice that my eyes weren’t glazing over when friends felt the need to tell me about their big V Day plans. You see this year I’m in a relationship. A great, big grown up relationship with his toothbrush in my bathroom to prove it.

I still didn’t feel the need to actually celebrate Valentines Day. There were no plans for an elaborately themed meal/gift combo. I didn’t want everything that this overly commercialised day with its ostentatious gifts represented. No! That was not for me! I didn’t want any of that! Until of course, I did.... until I caved into the absurdity of it all. For want of a better expression I fell to Valentines Day’s knees. I wanted it all! No! I needed it all! Not for me now, I needed it for me ten years ago. I owed it to that awkward kid to spend Valentines Day with someone I loved, but more than that I owed it to that awkward kid to be showered with gifts and then to of course tell the whole world about it! To take photos of roses and teddy bears and post them on Facebook! To make declarations of my undying love (publicly of course...) and to pretty much rub it in the faces of all of those out there spending this most romantic of romantic nights watching episode upon episode of ‘Friends’ with nothing but a baked potato for solace and companionship.

And so it happened that I sent my Mr this text...

“I secretly really want to celebrate Valentines Day this year, because secretly I have never had a boyfriend on Valentines Day (I’m choosing to not count high school on this occasion). However, should anyone ask I hate Valentines Day. I think Valentines Day is a lame, ridiculous day designed only for corporate greed. Ok? Xx”

As luck would have it the Valentines gods were not smiling on us. I had to work all day and he, being a musician had to gig not all, but a significant chunk of the night some 100km away. And so it was decided we’d celebrate on another day. I calmed myself down from the Valentines whirlwind I’d whipped myself into and began a different kind of Valentines daydream. One far more suited to the current day me as opposed to that teenage me. Hydrangeas and frangipanis picked from his garden, cups of tea in big yellow mugs, an old mulberry tree and a day together doing whatever, whenever.

And then he went and surprised me. He turned up at my workplace unannounced on this most sacred of days. The desire my teen self held for Valentines glory sated by kitsch presents and an overt PDA on the footpath. I have to admit to revelling in the walk home from work, laden with Valentines paraphernalia. I also have to admit to getting quite a kick out of struggling with said paraphernalia as I tried to open the door to my building.

So while I sit here and write and sneak glances at those sweet gifts on my coffee table, feeling smug that this Valentine’s day I was not forgotten, I know it’s really my awkward sixteen year old self that is feeling so chuffed. What I’m most looking forward to is the belated Valentines, the one with tea in big yellow mugs and lazing about under a mulberry tree.

Finally I say to you this; at the risk of sounding all kinds of lame and (oh my god! the shock of it!) like a total Valentines convert... perhaps this day isn't so bad after all. 

I hope you had a fabulous one! 

Gemma Grace Xx