For the past 23 years of my life, Valentine's Day has passed by me as a non-event. As far back as I can remember, I've not given anybody a Valentine card, and the only gift I've given on such an occasion were a dozen roses one year to my Mom and Grandma. That's it, the extent of my participation in the holiday. I've never had a significant other at this time of year before, so participation or lack there-of in the event has never been an issue which required thought. There simply hasn't been a compelling need.
This year though, I have a Meags, and amazingly enough her Spring Break happens right after Valentine's day which means she will more or less be around just in time to celebrate it. And celebrate it we shall, the current plan is to take a weekend trip to San Antonio the second weekend she is here and that will be our Valentine's day, a week and a half after the actual day. But the thing is, I don't really understand the holiday and WHY we celebrate it. It just doesn't make any sense to me in the least.
Let me explain. The holiday's origins (As well as most other holidays seem to have) have a pagan background in which enterprising young men would draw for names of available women and they would then be a couple for that year. Timed dating, you draw a name out of a hat and she is yours for one year for mutual pleasure. Obviously the Catholic Church didn't appreciate this much and decided to make one small alteration to the process. You still drew names, but now you drew names of Saints, and this Saint was yours for the year - not for being intimate with, but rather to imitate. You were to live your life as the Saint for that year. Obviously this didn't go over well, but that is to be expected. The avatar for this Saint-drawing practice was St. Valentine, a man who was clubbed, stoned, and beheaded because he married couples in secret during a time when weddings were outlawed. (Men don't like leaving their wives to go to war, the solution was to not let them have wives)
I can kind of see how one might be inclined to associate the love expressed on this holiday along with those couples who refused to abide by an unjust law and get married anyway. This has a love theme and it was why Valentine was the obvious candidate to help expel the potluck mating ritual. But I still can't see how this relates to a holiday in which I'm expected to give flowers, candy, cards, and lavish gifts to my significant other to prove I love them. They should already know that I love them. The whole concept of an annual, mandatory reassurance of love which I am already showing throughout the other 364 days of the year is lost on me. Sure, not every day has an equal amount of love displayed on it, but it seems to make more sense to me that large displays of love should appear at random rather than a predefined date that you didn't even define.
To me, love is a concept that you share with your significant other and the rest of the world should have very little influence on it. I feel as though Valentine's Day is so deeply entrenched into today's society that it has been expected of men to create lavish displays of affection for fear that they will be in trouble with their companion if they don't. Fear should never be a motivator to show love, love should be that motivator. I have no problem with people celebrating their love, I don't even have a problem with them celebrating it around Valentine's day, but it seems to me that one could easily be celebrating it for the wrong reason. Fear. Celebrating a day marketed by a company rather than a love provoked by an individual. Celebrating it out of societal obligation rather than commitment to a relationship.
Now this coming weekend of the 25th, we are going to be doing the make-up Valentine's day thing in San Antonio, but to me it won't be Valentine's anything. I would have taken her to San Antonio regardless (You know, unless she didn't want to go) of what time of year it was. I only get to see her for a fraction of the year and I want to make sure that those fractions are special times. To Meags (who really likes Valentine's day, second only to Christmas) it will be a late Valentine's day, to me it will just be a day that I'm lucky enough to be able to do something special with the girl I love and only get to see for brief parts of the year. We don't really see eye to eye on the matter, I can't understand the concept of Valentine's day as a necessary ritual of showing love over any other random day of the year, and she can't see why I can't wrap my head around it. But in the end it doesn't really matter what either of us feels about the holiday, so long as we love each other. You won't find me souring an evening with talk such as this, complaining about commercialization and how the industry price gouges poor innocent bystander males wanting to buy a dozen roses for their wife. I know that the day is important to her, and because of this, I'd never want to do anything to ruin it regardless of my feelings on the matter.
While writing this I've actually come to a minor epiphany which gives a formerly meaningless (to me) holiday actual meaning. By the very virtue of the fact that I can't find any compelling reason to celebrate Valentine's day more than any other given Monday in a year - yet knowing that I'll do so anyway out of knowing the importance she places on it, the holiday gains meaning. This meaning doesn't stem from fear of consequences if should I ignore the holiday, but rather from caring about something that is important to her. It becomes abstracted from being about a holiday manufactured for love by corporations and into another item she places deep care upon like her family, her friends, and her music. If I can see the point in caring about those things then logically I can see the point in caring about another item grouped into the same category.
Finally, an understandable and compelling reason to celebrate Valentine's day which isn't a product of fear of repercussions or societal influence. (At least not at its core, one could always argue that it boils down to that if you trace it back far enough) I'd still prefer if this annual event could be done at any spontaneous time of the month in a given year, but at least it now has meaning to me, I'd feel a bit dirty otherwise. Meags is a wonderful, beautiful person who I love very much, and luckily enough she also loves me. I'd hate to celebrate with her without my whole heart, and my doing so with my whole heart requires meaning. Meaning found, dirtiness resolved, just like in a commercial for your favorite cleaning product!
Posted by Michael at February 11, 2005 01:47 PM