Don't Get Your Hopes Up

I am sitting in the surgical waiting room as I type this and the hospital system does not like the spell check on Blogger, so forgive any typos.  This is a rather disjointed post -- big shock -- as I am just sitting here typing to pass the time until my daughter gets out of surgery, but if you have a couple of seconds, all I want for Valentine's Day is a vote.  Over there on the right hand side, there are 2 buttons to click to cast your vote.  As soon as the other sites come up, you're done.  Thanks, and I hope that my scattered thoughts on Valentine's Day don't feel like a waste of time....

 

It's Valentine's Day. I know this because of the barage of commercials about going to Jared, chocolate diamonds, sending flowers, and the constant reminders that I get from the 1,243,672 emails I have received from Groupon, LivingSocial, 1-800-FLOWERS, and everyone else. I even got a Valentine coupon from the Jiffy-Lube place because nothing says I love you like a good radiator flush. I'm actually pretty indifferent about Valentine's Day.

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE romance. But with Valentine's Day there is way too much pressure. Flowers, candy, jewlery, heartfelt cards that make you swoon, dinner -- it's too much. I have had some perfect evenings, but not one of them was on Valentine's Day.

The entire holiday is about making women feel unloved and men feel inadequate. If you are a girl, then you want and on some level expect to be knocked off of your feet by a grand gesture the way your favorite character from your favorite show was by her guy. And if you're a guy, then whatever you do will fall horribly short of what your girl has seen on TV and in the movies. If we had a bunch of writers and a crew to set the scene for us and had multiple takes to get it right, then we could have all of those perfect, mind-blowing, Valentine's Day moments like we see on screen.

But we don't, so we always feel at least a little short changed.

And not to mention that everything costs 2-3 times what it should cost on Valentine's Day. Those roses that you bought and had sent to your sweetie that cost you $100 today would be about $40 next week. The $5 card will be on clearance tomorrow, and the candy will all be on the 10 for $10 table as they make room for Easter goodies. If my husband sent me $100 roses on Valentine's Day, I'd be pissed because any other day of the year, he could have sent me flowers for a third of the price. In fact, I'd rather have the $100. That way I could go to Aldi and get roses every week for the next 6 months.

But today, I don't have to worry about all of the Valentine's nonsense. My husband and I will not celebrate romance until the resturaunts are less crowded, the chocolates and cards are on clearance, and the flower prices have hit the semi-normal range. Nope, we just don't buy into the hype. There will be a time in the future when my kids will deal with all of the Valentine's crazy. They will have their hearts broken by boys who don't deliver the major drama, or by girls who expect too much. But luckily, for now at least, the biggest concern with the holiday is making sure not to send the wrong message to the boys or the girls in their classes with the Star Wars or Justin Beiber Valentine's from the grocery store.

No, today, we are at the hospital having pins put in Bella's broken arm. Last week, she decided to make up her bed. With her feet. So as she was standing on her bed, smoothing her covers with her feet, she fell. She broke her left arm just above the elbow. Today she is getting pins put in to stabilize it. After her knee surgery in December, we've seriously considered just keeping the orthapedic surgeon on retainer.

So my Valentine's Day is about mending broken bones, not broken hearts. At least for now.

My Valentine's Day advice? Don't get your hopes up. Expect nothing and you will be thrilled with anything. And if you get nothing? You won't be surprised or disappointed. I never expect anything for Valentine's Day. I married the most unromantic man in the world. He's awesome in so many other ways that it was a trade off I was willing to make.

Happy Valentine's Day!