Jake and I have never been big Valentine's Day people. We avoid going out to eat- opting to stay home, cook a nice dinner, and open up a good bottle of wine. We usually exchange cards, and occasionally there are flowers for me, and that's usually it. Very low key. Now, if you know me, you know I like big. I like overdone. I like surprises. I can take an idea that I'm on fire about and run like the wind. I love planning and organizing. My heart can usually be found in the teensiest details of holidays and celebrations. In the end, I want to make a fuss over you, so just sit back, dammit, and let me have my way.
My husband on the other hand, doesn't like a fuss. Wants to fly under the radar. Less is more. Thinks a birthday is just another excuse to spend money for more stuff. He will tell you he already has enough stuff and he truly means it. This is a man who would be content with a mattress on the floor, a lamp, and maybe his iPhone or laptop.
Let me break it down for you even further. This is a typical conversation we have a couple of times a year:
Me: What would you like for Christmas/your birthday/Easter/Chinese New Year?
Jake: Nothing. I don't need a thing. (translation: I don't need anything at all).
Me: Okay, cool. But seriously, what do you want?
Jake: Really, nothing. I don't want anything. (translation: your love is all I'll ever need in this world).
Me: Oh. {fidgets and looks away}
Jake: Why? What do you want??
Me: Oh. You don't have to get me anything. (translation: there's a strategically placed magazine lying on my side of the bed up in our room, turned to p16 and you BETTER take a hint).
Flame me if you will, but after five years of marriage, no man in his right mind should show up on a major recognized holiday empty-handed, especially if he was instructed not to buy anything. I'm so sure of this that I plan to prepare Milo well in advance. I will tell him that when his future girlfriend/wife says she doesn't want anything, she's LYING. As a matter of fact, she wants that pair of shoes that she was eyeing five months earlier when you met her at the mall to grab dinner. It was probably when she said, "ooh, I wonder if they have those in my size." Or, if she fawns all over her girlfriend's new ring/bracelet/bag in front of you, you better PAY ATTENTION. She's only saying it out loud like that because she wants you to hear it and be able to conjure it up eleven months later when she says, "oh, you don't need to get me anything."
Does this make me sound shallow? Probably. But that's a limb I'm willing to put myself out on for a while, and here's why.
Because it actually isn't about the gift.
I know it sounds like I just contradicted myself, but let me explain. The night before Valentine's Day, I had to make a quick run to a nearby Walgreens to pick up some more Motrin for my little teething monster. While I was there, I walked past two well-dressed men standing in the card section and happened to overhear one of them joke to the other, "I'm not reading all of these. As long as I show up with something..." There were actually quite a few men in the card section that night. Some of them well-dressed. Some were in sweats with 5 o-clock (make that more like 8 o'clock) shadows. Young guys. Middle-aged men. The whole gamut.
I understand that Valentine's Day is really nothing more than a ploy to get consumers to spend more money and put unnecessary pressure on husbands, wives, parents, kids, and teachers to have something to hand their Valentines. And still, something in me cringed when I heard that exchange. I didn't think about it much more though, until Jake came home on Valentine's night with a dozen red roses and a card. The roses were beautiful, don't get me wrong. And the card was one that really spoke to what we shared as a couple- beautifully written and thoughtfully picked, I'm sure.
But there was a perceived problem: there were no chocolates. Yes, I'm aware that some women didn't get anything at all for Valentine's Day. I'm also aware that pointing out the absence of a heart-shaped box of truffles in light of the fact that I was given roses AND a card might make me sound incredibly spoiled. Furthermore, I'm aware that my husband is the bees knees and that he would prefer we didn't celebrate Valentine's Day at all for the reasons mentioned in the previous paragraph. I know all of this in my very core. But the thing is, I just really wanted some chocolates. I had even gone as far as to tell him this a couple of weeks ago. I was sure of it. It wasn't something I had simply hinted or given subliminal messages about. So I was disappointed, as much as I tried not to be. Somewhere, in the back of my mind, I struggled against feeling entitled because, in typical me-fashion, I had gone all out (even though I had done it because I wanted to, not because I had ulterior motives).
Still, it bugged me, and he could tell. So I told him. Then I felt like crap. Then he felt like crap. Then I felt even more like crap for making him feel crappy. At first, even I couldn't figure out why it felt like such a big deal to me. Then, about halfway through an awkwardly-silent dinner (which also didn't taste nearly as good after my "where's the chocolate" conversation) I realized that it actually wasn't about the chocolate. I realized it had more to do with the crazy long hours we've both been working lately- him at his job, me at home with the kids. It's the almost constant-state of fatigue we find ourselves in, how we often go to bed at different times because there's always some project keeping one of us up, and how we can be in the same room with each other but sometimes not really see each other. And all of that lent itself to a small paranoia that saw my husband standing in that group of men at Walgreens the other night, randomly plucking out a cheesy card written in iambic pentameter because "anything would do." Yes, I wanted chocolate. But, I think what I really wanted was to know that, even after almost 6 years of marriage and 2 kids, we're still in sync with each other. That we can still tune out all of the ambient noise- the deadlines, appointments, kids, finances, artistic endeavors and everything in between- and dial into each other.
Of course, we don't need a holiday to reaffirm the bond we have with each other. I'm often guilty of putting a lot of pressure on a single day instead of realizing that I can take full advantage of the other 364 days a year to do the same thing. So I guess we both learned a valuable lesson the other night. Jake learned that there is no such thing as overrated chocolate (really, there's not. All chocolate is all good, all of the time).
And I learned that sometimes, it's not really about the chocolate at all...
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