A Very Special Valentine

Valentine's Day is coming. A holiday (if you can even call it that) built up so masterfully by the greeting card industry, and the chocolate industry, and the floral industry, and the jewelry industry, is just another occasion causing mass commercialism and high pressure decisions with superficial implications about the degree to which one person loves another. I know I sound cynical. I am as guilty as the next girl of waiting with high hopes and fantastical dreams over the years, about what I would be surprised with by my husband on the Day of Love.  Sometimes I am  genuinely pleased, others I get the "I tell you I love you everyday, why do we need a holiday?" speech. Either way, it's all good. I have been with my husband for too many years to make any connections between the gift and his feelings. I'm not gonna lie. I love a surprise. But really, why do we give this holiday so much power? Let's face it. It is mostly girls and women. I hate even having to make such a statement, but the truth hurts sometimes. And in this case it hurts badly. Women, especially young women and girls, put so much stock into having a love interest or being a love interest- more on Valentine's Day than any other time. Why? Because Hallmark, Jason and Todd tell them to.  After all, Monday at work and school, everyone will want to know... "What did he (or she) get you?" 

I said something out loud to one of our students at school today, and it was one of those rare occasions I came up with some original genius. Like really, someone should be quoting me on a FB meme. I asked her, "You know who the best Valentine is?" She looked at me, already skeptical of what I was about to say, and shook her head no. "Yourself," I said. "No one in the world should love you more than you love yourself, and you can pick out the perfect gift because you know exactly what you want." She smiled at me, but I'm not sure she bought it. It's okay, because I did.

It's been a busy couple of weeks at work, and I had wanted to do a special project with the girls for Valentines Day. I wanted to help them participate in a practice of self-love. I wanted them to get the perfect Valentine- not from a boyfriend or girlfriend, but from themselves. I had planned to share this video with them, and have them write Valentines to themselves, but things were chaotic and time ran short. Instead, I'm sharing it with you. Watch the video, think about it, and try sending yourself a little love. You can even get adventurous and send it with some candy, or flowers, perhaps a piece of jewelry. Maybe you'd rather have a book or some music, tickets to a movie. Or you can just put it in an envelope with an upside down stamp in the corner and SWAK on the flap, and mail it from work to home. Trust me, writing it isn't so easy. I've been trying for days to write mine. But give it a try, and have a very Happy Valentine's Day. xxoo