Ah, Valentine’s Day… The day on which we (I?) make jokes about how difficult it was to open our front door with all the cards and flowers in the way. Otherwise could be known as “Marmite Day”… You either love it or hate it.
Facebook testifies to this fact.
From schmushy declarations of love, to boastful photographs of “oh-gosh-I’m-sooo-surprised-by-this-bouquet-of-flowers-aren’t-I-sooo-blessed?”, to bible verses about love and to downright “fnuh”, the 14 February has got people status-updating to the max.
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One of my life’s most creative and romantic gestures (thus far, I hasten to add!) was to make a handmade story book of high school friends who became college sweethearts. I poured my heart into it and it took weeks. After the then-current-day page of our love story, I marked “To be continued…”. When I gave the gift, my sweetheart thumbed through the pages after “To be continued…”, smiled and said “Oh good, there are lots of pages still to come.” *Sigh* Perfect!
Except two months later it was all over.
Love is a risk.
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Not so long ago, I lived in a house with two other girls. A little while after we moved in together, one housemate began a dating relationship. What struck me about the dynamic of that this time round, was that while we two single housemates were feeling left out of the “couples”, my newly “dating-someone” housemate was feeling left out of being single.
Over the next months, she and her boyfriend went through millions of ups and downs and ins and outs on the journey of working out if they could build a life together. They eventually tied the knot and are now facing the rest of life’s challenging adventures together as husband and wife. We got to be part of that as the three of us housemates honestly walked the path of our changing circumstances together.
Love is a risk.
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I never thought I’d be one to advocate for the American way of things, but if my friend and colleague is a good example of the American take on all this, then do it their way…
She made “Valentines” for the members of her choir : little red boxes containing lots of little items each related to some aspect of love. I can’t remember exactly, but like “a poem, to read and share”, “a piece of ribbon to bring together the ones you love”, “a plaster, to remind you that broken hearts heal” things like that. She’s determined to help them think differently about Valentine’s Day today.
She also invited me around to share in their new family tradition of Valentine’s Chocolate Fondue complete with red napkins and heart-embellished fondue forks. When its shared with family and friends, there’s no need to be single when you can be together.
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Love is a risk and if Valentine’s Day can be a way to celebrate the fact that the risk is worth taking and that we are not alone in any part of that, then I’m up for that.
And chocolate fondue.
But perhaps there’s no need to boast about your PERFECT life on Facebook…??
my small corner 