My Valentine Fail

My sweet was up early this morning. I found him comfortably reclined in his chair, watching some sort of fishing show. I leaned down to give him a kiss and he said “Happy Valentine’s Day.” (He remembered, good, this is not always the case.) I returned the greeting and handed him  a big, red envelope. His eyes flew to mine and he murmured, “Ah, I gotta run to town. ” I laughed and said, “No. You most certainly do not!” and waited for him to read the card, bracing myself for the laughter. Not because it was a funny card. It wasn’t. It was sweet, but definitely not funny, not intentionally…not until he read all the way to the bottom. It read:

Boy meets girl.

They like.

They listen.

They laugh.

They love.

A simply perfect love story –

And it’s ours.

Happy Valentine’s Day to my….

Wife.

Seriously. I bought him a card meant for a wife. Not on purpose! Clearly, I didn’t really read it, just checked out the front, skimmed the top part and thought to myself, “Well, that one works. I like it. Cute, but not sappy. Mission accomplished.” Then I came home, read it again, groaned in misery, and figured, well, I’m not buying another six dollar card! I figured he’d see the humour in it and he did. In my defense, it was in the ‘husband’ section of cards.

‘

That’s about as far as the Hallmark version of romance goes here on Valentine’s Day, which is fine. I have never made a big deal of Valentine’s Day, never had big expectations, which is good because sappy hearts and flowers aren’t really my hubby’s forté, his version of romance is better anyway.

I think Valentine’s Day is a scam and every so often I get sucked in and buy something sappy – like this year and you know how well that worked! The flowers cost three or four times as much as they do normally, which is a rip off. Everybody gets their hopes up and, frankly, it’s pretty hard to live up the expectations set by Hollywood and marketing gurus.

Funny how your ideas of romance change over the years. I saw a picture on Facebook (posted by a young woman) of a rose petal strewn hallway and bed and all I could think was “Well, you know who’s going to be cleaning that up. Besides, those petals are going to get stuck to you in weird places…not good, not good at all.”

I’ll tell you what romance looks like to me:  holding my hand while we walk; kissing the back of my neck while I’m at the sink, then kicking me out of the kitchen to finish washing the dishes for me; dropping off a coffee at my work even though the place I work (a funeral home) weirds him out; turning on the electric blanket to warm my side of the bed when I’m feeling cold; lugging that sun-bleached tree stump home so I can put it in the yard as a decoration…that’s romantic.

Every time my husband makes me feel beautiful, that’s romantic. When he kisses me and tells me he loves me and I can see in his eyes that he really means it, that’s romantic. When he reaches over and takes my hand and says “thanks for marrying me”, that’s romantic.

I don’t need him to panic because he forgot to pick up a card. I mean, it’s not exactly like I nailed that one this year either. He’s romantic in his own way and it works for me.

And, since it isn’t all about me, flowers and candy aren’t really his thing either, but, he knows I love him when I don’t complain about his trips fishing or snowmobiling with his buddies. He knows I love him when he comes home after a hard day and I have dinner ready. He knows I love him when I get in the boat and go out on the ocean, even though it scares me. He knows I love him because I make sure I tell him every single day.

That’s love. That’s romance.