Valentine’s Day
In my early teens, I had one or two nice Valentines, but was always slightly suspicious they might have come from my Dad, trying to make me feel as special as my older sister who always seemed to get a doormat load of envelopes every Feb 14th. He never let on, and I never found out whether those annual treats were in fact a consolation prize or whether some spotty lothario at school really fancied me. I remember one boyfriend who dumped me just before Valentine’s Day. I reckoned it was because he was too mean to cough up for a gift. My mum secretly theorised that he probably had someone else he wanted to take to the church “Valentine’s Day” dance. Whatever, I was so mortified, I sent him a torn up Valentine, and have felt guilty ever since. I did once get a real Valentine from a boy who followed me home from the train station to find out where I lived. On the evening he followed me, I waited on my doorstep with baited breath for him to say something, but he just lurked around the corner. Next morning, there was a big pink envelope on the doormat. Sadly, in the stupid age-old tradition, he signed the card (two lovebirds kissing in a heart shaped cloud) with a question mark, and no address nor telephone number!) I never saw him again. Such an investment, such a beautiful gesture, and yet what a waste.
I think from that moment, I lost faith in Valentine's Day. What use is the effort without the Happy Ever After?
I did fall for another blonde-haired, blue-eyed Adonis in the sixth form. He was a rower, 6'4" tall with a 44" chest (I think he must have told me!). He boarded at the nearby Cathedral School - so I sent a wistful Valentines to him (lonely, moonlit beach). I later learned that he had received so many Valentines that the boarding house voted him Hunk of the Month, and my gesture simply faded into obscurity. He did, however, start going out with a girl in my form at school. She looked daggers at me for months - so perhaps my Valentine was recognised, after all! Since those days, Ive always regarded Valentine’s Day as a tryranny. You feel as though you’re a complete failure unless you have a “valentine” in tow, and then he’s got to conform to some sort of Greetings Card ideal of a Romantic, remembering a card or gift that’s not too soppy, nor overtly commercialised. Trouble with me always was that I preferred the sort of men who hated Valentine’s Day and everything it stood for – so I rarely got a Valentine’s gift. Usually it was a mutually arranged romantic dinner, over candlelit hand-holding in a restaurant somewhere in Soho! In later years, it became almost impossible to arrange, what with five offspring and two busy careers to schedule! And I just HATE the way even nursery and kindergarten teachers have fallen for the Valentine’s hype, sending kids home with sticky cards bristling with papier mache hearts and tissue paper flattery, marked for Mum. Mum wants a card from the man of her dreams, not the kids she bore to him. And so, I look forward one day to Valentine’s Days when it really means something. At 83, my own Mum has found true love again, after losing my Dad over ten years ago. Her wonderful beau speaks of her as “my love” and treats her like a superstar. So I’ve still got time!. What we all perhaps want is a partner who eschews the hype and commercialism of Valentine;s Day but has enough romanticism in his heart to know just how much a woman attaches to the date – and remembers a single red rose and a kiss at the right time.
|
