Love for Valentine's Day

We're two days away from one of what I personally think is the most controversial days of the year-- Valentine's Day.  I've heard many different versions (many Christian related) as to the origins of Valentine's Day, including the idea that V-Day (forgive my shorthand) originally started with no relevance to the romantic love now associated with it.  And we've all heard countless times how guys are supposed to hate V-Day, how tricky it can be to get "just the right gift," what a dangerous day it can be for couples early in their relationship, etc.  We've all heard the laments of the "forever alone" people not celebrating the day with anyone.  We've heard the long-married couples declaring that they don't need to give each other a gift to "prove their love on a certain day."  And so on.

People will be all over facebook on V-Day, with pictures of what their significant other got them (...because it's a competition?) and those not in a relationship declaring how much they hate this stupid day, and others proudly saying that they love their SO all the time, not just today.

Given what I've heard in the meager 21 years of my life, there's not a lot of love for Valentine's Day.

However.

I adore Valentine's Day.

I just try to look at it in a different way.  Like many people have commented, the typical day has become far too commercialized for my taste, with way too much pressure to get things "right."  But that's not why I like it.  As far as the three V-Days that I've celebrated with my boyfriend, they haven't exactly been perfect.  We've tried really hard to make them awesome, but after last year resulted in an argument that was more my fault than anything, I came to the conclusion that I suck at V-Day.  I really do.  That's when I realized I was approaching it from entirely the wrong angle and needed to regroup my thoughts about it and try a different technique when celebrating.

I don't think V-Day needs to be about the jewelry or the craziness anymore, in a sense.  I don't think it's necessary to have those elements for the perfect V-Day.  BUT!  If that's how you choose to celebrate it, then I think it's fine.  I really appreciate V-Day as the thought of a day that we set aside to show our appreciation for those in our lives that we love and cherish.  I've heard my parents say over the years that they don't need to be told by a day on the calendar that they need to show how much they love each other, but I kind of like the idea.

Every one of us has a day that we use to celebrate our own natural instincts telling us to swim out of our mothers' birth canals... and we get presents for it year after year.  We have days that we dedicate to only our mothers, to only our fathers, to celebrate that the earth made an entire journey around the sun without blowing up, to celebrate all sorts of things that we don't question nearly as much as we do the day that we're supposed to show love for each other, February 14th.  Of course, it's been over-commercialized and over-dramafied (new word!) and so on and so forth, but what hasn't?

I think it's great if couples want to give each other a gift to celebrate their love.  And it doesn't have to be just couples.  It can be friends, family members, the pizza guy-- anyone.  Show someone some appreciation.  I believe that this SHOULD be going on every day of the year, but that would be exhausting.  So why not use V-Day as a special day for that?

I love roses any day of the year, but I always ask for some for V-Day.  They're beautiful, I'm not allergic to them, and when my boyfriend brings them to me, I'm filled with joy at receiving something special from him.  If you're truly anti V-Day, what makes this different than receiving something on any other day of the year?

I'm actually surprised at myself, that I'm going to post this.  My skills at rhetoric are quite rusty, and re-reading this, I'm guessing that not a lot of people will agree with me.  I've left quite a few holes in my own argument and don't have the necessary tactics to bring my thoughts from my head to my words at this moment, for which I apologize.  I'm surprised that I'm not going to delete this in fear of going against what the majority of people, of my friends, think.  But I often forget that my opinion is just as valuable as everyone else's, and that I shouldn't have to be afraid of accidentally thinking something else (gasp!).

I just don't think that it's too bad of an idea to have a day where we acknowledge how much we appreciate the people in our lives, everyone, all at once, a whole ton of love.  In a perfect world, we shouldn't necessarily NEED a day for this, but this world isn't perfect.  I really like the most basic concept of Valentine's Day: love.