I don't heart Valentine's Day

On the long list of holidays I don't give a rat's ass about, Valentine's Day is up near the top. 

It's hard to imagine anything more preposterous than designating one particular day on which we're all supposed to get smoochy and romantical with our current life-partners.  I mean, does anyone really feel special when they're treated to chocolates and erotic foot massages just because the calendar told their hapless boyfriend/girlfriend that today was the day they had to join the rest of the Western World in spontaneous gestures of romantic love?

Don't get me wrong.  I'm not against romance in general, or even celebrating it based on what day it is.  That's what anniversaries are for: your special day with your main squeeze.  It just seems to me that the day when a dozen roses and a nice dinner mean the least is the day when societal pressure dictates the purchase/preparation/presentation of those items by anyone who is in a relationship.

I suppose some lucky lady (and let's be honest, this holiday is all about the ladies) somewhere is being swept off her feet so creatively and effectively that she has forgotten all about the little red heart on the calendar and has allowed herself to believe that her mate is acting only out of overwhelming feelings of love. But when I think of typical Valentine's Day moments, all I envision are dozens of couples lined up outside the Olive Garden, the dudes fingering the professionally wrapped Victoria's Secret giftboxes they picked up on their way home from work.

A truly strong, loving relationship, however, doesn't require such artifice; and its affirmation isn't limited to one or two days per year.  In my own marriage, for instance, my wife and I set aside a little time during each day to simply hold one another, gaze into each other's eyes, and recite our wedding vows.

Okay, that's bullshit too.  Also, I have a little barf-chunk stuck in my tonsil now.

My wife and I have been together for almost twenty years.  That's more years than she had been alive when we first met.  We're family.  We've been through the most difficult and most wonderful moments of our lives together.  And now, with 19-month-old twins, it's a whole new world of wonderful and difficult moments.  Scented candles and rose petals on the bedlinen are a more ridiculous notion than they ever were before.

We probably won't do anything special tonight.  We got the jump on the Valentine's Day restaurant rush by picking up sushi last night; and the previous night we lay on the couch and watched a DVD on the laptop--a rare treat.

The movie we got was "Date Night," which was about 60% hilarious, and worth a rental.  One of the semi-serious threads in the movie was a lament of the loss of spontaneity and romance in a workaday relationship that includes offspring.  This is not a new theme in movies or TV, or even "lifestyle" magazines and websites.  We boring married parents are supposed to want to "spice up" our lives.

I can't speak for my wife, but, at the moment at least, I'm okay with the nutrient-rich, satisfying, subtly-seasoned life we've got going right now.  In fact, I'm savoring every moment of it. 

Happy Valentine's Day, honey.

(I'm gonna need to get some roses, aren't I?)