Yesterday I went to a restaurant for lunch that had approximately 50 pink floral wreaths hanging from its ceiling. Oh my husband said I guess valentine’s day is next week. Should we go out to dinner?
My husband is in the category of people who feel personally offended by societal pressure to celebrate a certain way on a certain day. But over the years, he has become more amenable to celebrating a made up holiday because I like any reason to celebrate. And I’ve become less interested in needing made up holidays to look a certain way. We’ve met in the middle, you might say.
But Valentine’s day has always struck me as offensive. When I was single, it was a yearly reminder that there was a “type of love” to be celebrated. One that I did not presently have. And after becoming one half of a happy couple, I still felt irritated by the day. There was something off about a day that seemed to cater to an exclusive population of people, one that required an overt expression of romantic love.
The more I thought about it, I realized that elementary schools had it right. You know, when you would write a valentine for everyone in your class? Why did that stop as we got older? Why was there an increasing focus on romantic love and a deprioritizing of other kinds as we grew? I think it’s not so much the singular day that’s the issue, but that the singular day represents what our culture values. And really, wouldn’t it be wonderful if we celebrated all of the kinds of love we had? Love for our ourselves, friends, parents, siblings, neighbors, children, nieces, nephews, aunts, uncles, grandparents…and the list goes on? All of the love stories we have.
Anyway, enough of my soapbox. This is all just to say that this month I’m going to be sharing different types of love poems. I hope you’ll follow along and I hope it makes you remember how much love there is in your life, with or without the one “significant other”.
First up, one to ourselves, present and past.
Thank you for reading!
Hannah
Love your view on Valentine’s Day! And thank you so much for sharing your beautiful words. Growing and changing and aging is such a wild experience, thank you for putting that into words!