Valentine's Day

I'm too old now, for Valentine's Day. And oh, I'm glad.

My husband has been our daughter's secret admirer since her first February, with a little potted primrose and a card outside the door, teddies with hearts. I suppose it's my turn to do the same for my son, but it doesn't quite come naturally, I must admit.

Ms Moon wrote a post, about the pressures and stresses of it, of never feeling that anyone got it quite right. Well, my feeling is that Valentine's Day is for tweenies and people who are newly in love and want any excuse. After that, we're free of it! My heart cries for the awkward 13 year olds without cards, the lonely ones without dates who have to watch contrived displays of affection, from prettier, more popular people... life is full enough of opportunities that prove it isn't fair without us contriving them.

My husband and I used to write each other silly little Roses are Red rhymes in our cards, and I loved them, but as time went by he stopped... he also stopped signing my birthday cards and Valentine's Day cards 'I love you more with each passing year' as it became more apparent that the opposite was in fact becoming true... but last year, and I think I wrote about this, the poems made a return, and it was nice. But I dunno. One swallow doesn't make a summer, maybe.

Anyhow, in terms of Valentine's Day and Romantic Expectations, I devised a Tactic that is working well for me. I buy Axel a bunch of really nice flowers, in the event that he gets me nasty ones with crysanthemums in them again, and that way I have nice flowers to look at one way or the other and it's all good.

And something fun - as I was going for my walk the other day, I noticed the hearts below sprayed on various walls along the road. It may not be Banksy, but I like it. There's something youthful and proactive and exhuberant about the project.

Then yesterday I was walking past the first one again, where it had been sprayed on the white wall of the Stepford type housing estate, and it had been painted over but someone had written LOVEHEART #6 over it in big black marker. Which I thought was fitting. Especially as I then passed a pair of discarded shitty underpants just up the hill, and pondered about how no similarly civic minded painter-outer citizen had picked them up and put them in the bin. I'd rather see a heart on the wall than a pair of shitty knickers on the ground...

So happy Valentine's Day, all, I hope you get the heart not the pants!