Valentine's Romance

I think that, once you get done with the "shoeboxes of hand-made Valentine's" stage of life, you should be told that you can't do any more Valentine-ing until you're a fully grown-up person.

I suspect that many people would enjoy the day more if they had had a respite in the middle. If they hadn't had to suffer through Junior High Sweetheart dances, or being forced to care (or not care) about the day in High School.

Personally, I don't remember the first time I had a Valentine's Day date.

I remember times when I would go out with friends to parties or bars and hang out. And I remember one Valentine's Day in my late 20s which was - although I didn't realize it at the time - the beginning of a break-up (which took a few more weeks to come to its completion). But, really, I don't remember any significant Valentine's dates along the way.

Instead, when I was working retail, I'd offer to work that night so that people who had dates could go out. And, well, so that I could try to talk desperate men out of buying blenders for their wives ("because she's always said she wanted to make smoothies for her diet...").

A few years ago, that changed, though. I started to look forward to Valentine's Day just a bit more. Not in an "I want red and pink and over-the-top gestures" kind of way, but just in an "I'm happy to have you in my life" kind of way.

I'm lucky, though, because Christopher and I have a decent amount of romance in our lives on a daily basis. We have fresh flowers in the house a lot of the year. We go out to dinner for no reason. We stay in and sit on the couch together watching movies. We basically do all of the things that people get so worked up about on Valentine's Day - we just do it all year, instead.

I have to admit that, last year, when Christopher scheduled a week away with friends to take place over Valentine's Day... well... that made me not so happy. I didn't think it would matter, but once it was scheduled, I realized that it kind of did. It was a shock to me (well, to both of us) how much it bugged me. But we talked about it, and so this year he's not leaving for his trip until the 16th. Which means that we have today (well... except for the fact that we're at our jobs) and tonight together.

And how are we planning to spend this romantic day?

We're going to go to a late-afternoon matinee of the latest "Die Hard" movie so that we can watch a bunch of stuff get blown up while having a gourmet dinner of popcorn and sodas. Then we're going to go home and hang out on the couch with the pup.

Yep. I'm thinking that Christopher and I do Valentine's Day romance in what is, quite possibly, the best way ever.