Valentines Day is a Satanic Plot

I am not a fan of Valentines Day.   Which is too bad since it is also my Anniversary.  Ya it's not that we were overly romantic in choosing the day, quite the opposite.  My husband was in school and suggested if we got married the Thursday before President's Day we could have a longer honeymoon. I looked at the calendar and grimaced as I realized it was Valentines Day.  I turned to him and told him that was cliche, he said, "Okay we can wait until I'm out of school in the summer."  Two problems with that: I'm a God fearing Christian full of raging hormones (even then).  I was pretty sure we would not be temple worthy by summer, so Valentine's Day it was.

The upside is we can never forget our Anniversary as the entire marketing structure of the United States reminds us.  But isn't that marketing structure a little off?  In all the ads there is flowers and candy and candlelight, gorgeous model couples with lean beautiful bodies staring at each other with pleasure and passion.  And to prove the intensity of their love he is giving her jewelry and roses.  As if love can be measured by the amount of money you spend.  Here my love, I love you a 1500 dollar diamond bracelet worth which makes me much better than the schmo who loves his spouse a twenty dollar Walmart necklace worth.  Doesn't this set insane expectations all the way around?

And what does any of it have to do with love?

I like Garrison Keillor's version of love.  He tells the story of a couple who bought several piglets and cared for them in the hopes of selling them and taking a long awaited trip to Hawaii. But, winters in Lake Wobegone are hard. The piglets contracted a virus and every single piglet died. Their dream gone and their hearts broken they commenced to taking on the immediate task. He says,

"If the two of you pick up sixty-eight little pig carcasses by their frozen legs and throw them into the pickup and haul them to the landfill and bury them, and if you don't get mad and blame each other, just do the job, and go to bed, your pigs gone and your shirts lost, and turn toward the middle and lie in each other's arms, that's true love.  Probably it will last because it has endured so much already"   

(Leaving Home, Garrison Keillor - get it read it - it's awesome)

Real love is just that..the resolution to be together, to keep working together, through all the stuff of life, to keep reaching and becoming together.  No jewelry, no candy, no candelight....

....although flowers would be nice.  /