Happy Valentines Day!

No, really.
I mean it. Happy New Years too, and MLK day!
Shit, I love holidays and I am tired of people rolling their eyes and going off about consumerism and how we should love each other more than a few days a year and the corniness and oh just shut the fuck up.
Look, it’s true…we should make a concerted effort to appreciate each other in an ongoing fashion. We should dance and party on a Tuesday night. We should gift each other and call just to say hi with the kind of alarming regularity that would make holidays unnecessary. We should make our own holidays. And don’t just call your mom on her birthday. Make it your business to show you care as a habit, not an event.
But that being said: Do you? Are you that person that celebrates your life and your friends and your love and calls just to say I love you? Because a lot of us don’t…we forget, we get caught up. And so then we’ve got these holidays. These silly special “dates” that commemorate an idea or an event or inspire an emotion. And just about every culture has them, so I have to assume we perceive a need for them.
And I think that is great. Why not make an effort to be ongoing in your affections and also take advantage of these days put aside to celebrate as well? So many awful and annoying things happen in life that are apt to stop your heart and break your routine. Why not take advantage of moments scheduled to punctuate the joy?
Look, here is a little story: Some friends and I have become involved in a ring of pranks. We leave…stuff on each others doorsteps. Stuff intended to inspire humor and confusion and maybe a bit of shock. These actions, are, as a friend put it, acts of love. And they are. Because when you come home to find a great big piñata randomly sitting on your doorstep, you might not understand much, but you’ll get that people you know were running around and they thought of you. Get it?
And then one of these friends, and yes, just a friend, has become my valentine. So I’ve been coming home to other stuff on my doorstep…balloons and candy and little toys and other silly things that, honestly, always make me smile. I came home in a foul foul mood the other day and was ready to let loose on someone or everyone and then I saw all this shiny pink silly stuff glinting at me on my doorstep and I burst into laughter.
Lord bless valentines day. Usually I just find bills waiting for me when I get home.
SO I am not saying you should go out and find the most expensive bouquet of roses and show up with a candy heart. I’m not telling you to consume consume consume. I’m not telling you to invest your stock in pink. I’m just saying…happy valentines day! Enjoy it! Maybe even celebrate love and romance a bit.
If someone cares about you, loves you, in any old way. Be happy.
And if someone makes you swoon, make a special effort to thank them for being there. We should all be so lucky.