Valentine's Day

Our modern take on a day to remember and reconnect

Valentine’s Day has some less than romantic and love filled origins. It appears to have some dark beginnings and was less about love and more about random coupling. Later in more modern times it began to be celebrated and commercialised as it is now.

However it is a good excuse for a date night, some loving kindness and an opportunity to connect with your someone special. Buying some flowers and writing something loving on a card won’t do anyone any real harm and it might just gain you some quantifiable brownie points. Going on a date night is always a great opportunity to reconnect, eat something whilst looking at each other and not your phone and reminding your someone significant why they agreed to commit and trust you.

I’m always reminded of one of our second Valentine’s Day. The first one only a few short weeks after we started seeing one another involved a rose and a dinner out and I was sure that I had met Mr Romance. The next year I made a wonderful picnic feast and bought a funny gift for my beloved. The gift was a weird looking soft toy bird emblazoned with “You drive me cuckoo!” And never a truer word was spoken in jest as said beloved had not even considered doing anything to celebrate that day nor the next one. However I realised that he’d finally come to his senses and made a commitment when he drove an hour and a half to meet me, bought me a CD (shows how long ago it was!) and wrote “Love” for the first time on a card. Since then we have made it a practise to always eat out and show one another that we can live in a culture of appreciation.

Valentine’s Day is our chance to stop and remember what we are doing here together. We are busy and we have lots of “have to” things to do. But we both know that nothing would be as easy if we had to face those “have to”s alone. We aim for regular date nights and pressures of work and study can mean that the space between those dates can be longer than it should be.

But we also plan date days. We may picnic on a beach or walk in a rainforest or eat cake and drink coffee somewhere away from home and we ensure that we make eye contact and have a laugh together.

My point is that one needs to celebrate one’s union and if that means one allows oneself to be drawn into the commercialisation of Valentine’s Day, then where’s the harm? I’m not suggesting breaking the budget to overly indulge in expensive gifts and 5 course degustations, unless that’s important to either of you, I’m suggesting you give one another your time and your attention.

It’s too easy to allow yourself to find excuses for not being romantic and demonstrative. It’s actually just as easy to just show a bit of romantic ability and be happy to allow yourself to show someone that you love them, care for them, want their support and appreciate all that they are in your life.

Happy Valentine’s Day to you all!