My Un-Sunny Valentine by Nannette Croce

Valentine’s Day. My expectations for this holiday were unrealistically heightened in first grade when Alan Green dumped most of his Valentine cards, including the special heart addressed to our teacher, into my mailbox. Ever since I’ve awaited an equally romantic display and come up short.

In the years between first grade and my senior year of high school I never had a boyfriend around Valentine’s Day. The boy I dated my senior year was too anti-establishment to buy into such a commercial holiday.

Until senior year of college the only Valentines I received came from my Mom––something no one wants past the age of ten. Then I was surprised with chocolates and a romantic card, not from the love of my life, a foreign student who didn’t know from Valentine’s Day, but from the guy I’d considered a “good friend” since freshman year. And no, I didn’t end up marrying him. It ruined our friendship and the rest of my senior year. (You were expecting maybe Jane Austen?)

Today my husband and I are going out to a little place that serves high tea on fine china. That is very Jane Austen, but I didn’t wait for an invitation or drop flirtatious hints on a man so calendar-challenged he once asked me the date for our annual Christmas Eve party. I invited him, and he rearranged important meetings to fit it in. We’ll enjoy the novelty of spending time together on a weekday afternoon. He may or may not remember a card, but he’s sure to buy me a little something from the gift shop on the way out.

I could pine for another Alan Green-type Valentine’s Day or I could appreciate the unique way my current man shows his love.