Valentine's Day was also a craft related holiday. A week or so before the actual event, everyone would be asked to bring a box or brown paper lunch bag or something to school. About half the kids would remember to do this. The rest of the bags would be supplied by teachers. Said teachers would then pull out the white, red, and shades-of-red construction paper. We'd all get out our paste and safety scissors and perhaps some markers. There would always be those two or three kids who would spend the next few minutes getting high off the fumes.
I wonder where those kids are now . . .
Anyway, we would cover our boxes or bags with the construction paper (often poorly) and then start cutting out various sized valentines to put on it. We'd add our names and a place for the valentines to be slipped in. Often we'd make the hole large enough to handle any possible candies that might be given as well. Everyone always liked the kids with the overly ambitious mothers.
For the most part, everyone received the same valentine. Flat cards with some picture on the front and the To: and From: on the back. Most often, these weren't even filled in. The kids were handed a box of the cards and told to stick them in each slot. Everyone got the same thing. So in elementary school, no one had any reason to hate Valentine's Day.
The changes came in the later grades, as people began to think about things in much more basic and individual terms. With middle school, there was a lot of secrets and intrigue. People would receive Valentine's Day gifts of candy or flowers, often from admirers. I think in all of our lives, Anonymous is never more sexy than during middle school. The whole three years could have been one big masquerade ball and we would have been happy . . . actually, as bad as most of us were at putting on makeup, it probably was a lot like that.
Valentine's Day in high school was, depending on your station, either very fun or a day of hell. Okay, I guess that was true for ANY day of high school, but this one especially. The hour before lunch time, the secretary would come onto the intercom and begin to name off everyone who had gifts to be picked up, stating that this would be done again the hour before school let out.
Everyone listened to that intercom with such intensity, hoping for their names to be called. You could see the hope on their faces, wanting the gift so much, no matter what it was. . . . and then the look of either delight or disappointment when the results became clear. In terms of cruelty, I give that to the first announcement. Hands down. If you received no gifts on the first list, it was like being cut, but given assurance that you would either get stitches or cut even deeper later in the day.
Those of us, alone and giftless, would walk out of the school on those Valentine's Days and watch the Beautiful Ones glide to their cars with their bounty. Roses and other flowers, red, white, and/or shades there in-between of Teddy bears holding freaking hearts, boxes of candy, balloons shaped like valentines, with garish lettering of how much they were adored.
I remember sitting in my car one year, watching as a giddy creature had the daunting task of trying to stuff twelve helium balloons into her car. I told myself that this was just a moment in time and someday, I would be the one with balloons....and that instead of trying to put them in my car, me and Perfect Weird Boyfriend would sit on the ground outside of it, sucking the helium and singing songs to each other while we laughed.
Of course, I never found Perfect Weird Boyfriend. And over the years, as I watched as even the innocent hurt of high school VD gave way to "get-candy-and-whatever-boyfriend-is-resentful-but-I-give-him-sex" that so many seemed to experience during this holiday, the snark factor rose. The whole concept became one of bitterness and bile. After a while, that was more or less what the holiday was for me. Let's face it, I call it VD. That should tell you something.
This isn't to say I don't currently have a tradition with Valentine's Day. My roommate always buys up the most silly and gaudy things he can find and we eat them subversively, like we're stealing them from the mouths of the In-love Ones. Today he bought mini cupcakes that had pink and red icing and a smattering of tiny hearts on them. They were precious in the most godawful kind of way.
However . . . I'm letting go of my venom and bitterness for the holiday. Even if Valentine's Day has been a source of pain and rancor for me over the years, I've come to realize that it was only because I was letting it be.
I may not be in a romantic relationship with anyone, but that doesn't mean I can't bask in the love of others. And so I shall do just this. In fact, I plan on celebrating it, rejoicing in it, spreading as many happy bubbles as I can.
Because, here's the thing . . . most of the stuff in my life that works, are because I found a way to make them work for me. Life is rarely, if ever, an easy fit. Valentine's Day has never worked for me because I was trying to take it on the terms as described. That's not how things work for me.
So I'm reinventing how I view it. VD is now me basking in love, no matter who's love it is. And damn, do I feel good.
For the most part, everyone received the same valentine. Flat cards with some picture on the front and the To: and From: on the back. Most often, these weren't even filled in. The kids were handed a box of the cards and told to stick them in each slot. Everyone got the same thing. So in elementary school, no one had any reason to hate Valentine's Day.
The changes came in the later grades, as people began to think about things in much more basic and individual terms. With middle school, there was a lot of secrets and intrigue. People would receive Valentine's Day gifts of candy or flowers, often from admirers. I think in all of our lives, Anonymous is never more sexy than during middle school. The whole three years could have been one big masquerade ball and we would have been happy . . . actually, as bad as most of us were at putting on makeup, it probably was a lot like that.
Valentine's Day in high school was, depending on your station, either very fun or a day of hell. Okay, I guess that was true for ANY day of high school, but this one especially. The hour before lunch time, the secretary would come onto the intercom and begin to name off everyone who had gifts to be picked up, stating that this would be done again the hour before school let out.
Everyone listened to that intercom with such intensity, hoping for their names to be called. You could see the hope on their faces, wanting the gift so much, no matter what it was. . . . and then the look of either delight or disappointment when the results became clear. In terms of cruelty, I give that to the first announcement. Hands down. If you received no gifts on the first list, it was like being cut, but given assurance that you would either get stitches or cut even deeper later in the day.
Those of us, alone and giftless, would walk out of the school on those Valentine's Days and watch the Beautiful Ones glide to their cars with their bounty. Roses and other flowers, red, white, and/or shades there in-between of Teddy bears holding freaking hearts, boxes of candy, balloons shaped like valentines, with garish lettering of how much they were adored.
I remember sitting in my car one year, watching as a giddy creature had the daunting task of trying to stuff twelve helium balloons into her car. I told myself that this was just a moment in time and someday, I would be the one with balloons....and that instead of trying to put them in my car, me and Perfect Weird Boyfriend would sit on the ground outside of it, sucking the helium and singing songs to each other while we laughed.
Of course, I never found Perfect Weird Boyfriend. And over the years, as I watched as even the innocent hurt of high school VD gave way to "get-candy-and-whatever-boyfriend-is-resentful-but-I-give-him-sex" that so many seemed to experience during this holiday, the snark factor rose. The whole concept became one of bitterness and bile. After a while, that was more or less what the holiday was for me. Let's face it, I call it VD. That should tell you something.
This isn't to say I don't currently have a tradition with Valentine's Day. My roommate always buys up the most silly and gaudy things he can find and we eat them subversively, like we're stealing them from the mouths of the In-love Ones. Today he bought mini cupcakes that had pink and red icing and a smattering of tiny hearts on them. They were precious in the most godawful kind of way.
However . . . I'm letting go of my venom and bitterness for the holiday. Even if Valentine's Day has been a source of pain and rancor for me over the years, I've come to realize that it was only because I was letting it be.
I may not be in a romantic relationship with anyone, but that doesn't mean I can't bask in the love of others. And so I shall do just this. In fact, I plan on celebrating it, rejoicing in it, spreading as many happy bubbles as I can.
Because, here's the thing . . . most of the stuff in my life that works, are because I found a way to make them work for me. Life is rarely, if ever, an easy fit. Valentine's Day has never worked for me because I was trying to take it on the terms as described. That's not how things work for me.
So I'm reinventing how I view it. VD is now me basking in love, no matter who's love it is. And damn, do I feel good.
Good for you. I never believed in that one-size fits all BS approach to anything.
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