Valentine’s Day is just
around the corner and it got me thinking. When I was single, Valentine’s Day
was all about having a date for the evening, planning out what I would wear, painting
my nails pink or red, anxiously awaiting his arrival, going out to dinner, the goodnight
kiss, etc. The whole day was spent
dreaming of a romantically magical evening.
Twenty years and two
kids later… Valentine’s Day means something entirely different. Now, it’s about making shoe boxes into the
perfect Valentine receptacle, about purchasing Valentines for each child’s
friends and classmates, and about buying teacher gifts and making treats for classroom
parties. By the time the day is done, I’m
too tired to even think about a romantically magical evening… besides, finding a
babysitter for Valentine’s Day is virtually impossible. All the babysitters are young and single and busy preparing for their magical evenings.
By the time we get the
kids to bed, my husband and I will look at each other and exhale. We’ll both be beat. We’ll open a bottle of red wine, exchange
cards and snuggle on the couch to a re-run of Star Trek: The Next
Generation. Twenty years ago I would
have said this was lame…but now, it feels blissfully wonderful.
Even after the kids move away, the high point of the day is still likely to be a glass of relatively inexpensive wine and a Star Trek re-run. But it's still a good day even though we no longer need all the bells and whistles.
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