Happy Valentine's Day

No popular respect will I omit
To do the honour on this happy day,
When every loyal lover tasks his wit
His simple truth in studious rhymes to pay,
And to his mistress dear his hopes convey.
Rather thou knowest I would still outrun
All calendars with Love's whose date alway
Thy bright eyes govern better than the Sun,--
For with thy favour was my life begun,
And still I reckon on from smiles to smiles,
And not by summers, for I thrive on none
But those thy cheerful countenance compiles;
Oh! if it be to choose and call thee mine,
Love, thou art every day my Valentine!
- Thomas Hood, Sonnet--For the 14th of February

No, we shouldn't need a holiday to tell us to show the special person in our lives how much they mean to us, but there's nothing wrong with setting aside a day where we make a little more of an effort. Valentine's Day is, in this respect, much like Mother's Day or Thanksgiving-- a day when we celebrate a feeling or a sentiment we feel and show everyday. I like that idea.

I hate the stupid commercials and the idea that if you don't spend a boatload of money and your present doesn't include diamonds and you don't end the day with the feeling that the grandest romantic gesture of all time has been made for you, then your significant other doesn't love you/ you don't love your significant other. Balls to that. Everytime the jewelry store commercial comes on where the elderly couple is commenting on the younger couple and practically applaud when he gives his short-term girlfriend some jewelry or other, my blood pressure shoots through the roof-- almost as much as the Radio Shack commercial with the woman who's all "Sometimes when a person says they don't want anything, they really do want somethng", which makes me want to reach through the screen and grab the woman and scream "IF YOU'RE TOO STUPID TO SAY THAT YOU WANT SOMETHING, YOU DON'T DESERVE ANYTHING", which is really too much attention to give a commercial. I should cut down on the caffeine.

Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter quite like unrequited love.
~ Charlie Brown

I understand if you don't like Valentine's Day yourself. I even understand if you feel particularly anti-Valentine's because you're in the throes of heartache or because you're alone or because you have to be apart from the one you love. But please don't try to negate the holiday. Let the lovers celebrate each other. Let the rest of us who are so inclined celebrate love.

Poetry spills from the cracks of a broken heart, but flows from one, which is loved.
- Christopher Paul Rubero

Love is everything it's cracked up to be. That's why people are so cynical about it. It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don't risk everything, you risk even more. ~Erica Jong

Falling in love is still magical, no matter how many times your heart has been broken in the past. The hot intensity of your first love may never again be matched, but the heart rising like a phoenix from the ashes of heartbreak can understand the true value of tender looks, of small gestures of affection, of a lover's embrace. It's amazing and terrifying at the same time. To know the pain of loss, of betrayal, and still hold out your heart is a great gift: you know what you might be sacrificing, what vulnerability you've opened yourself to, but you're willing to risk it for the possibility of something wonderful.


Give me a kiss, and to that kiss a score;
Then to that twenty, add a hundred more:
A thousand to that hundred: so kiss on,
To make that thousand up a million.
Treble that million, and when that is done,
Let's kiss afresh, as when we first begun.
~Robert Herrick

Happy Valentine's Day.