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I want to shake up this holiday. I have no Valentine. Boo Flipping Hoo. Poor me. I need to get over it.
This year there is no significant other, either here or looming on my horizon. I watch the TV commercials knowing I am not getting candy or flowers or diamonds or a romantic anything on February 14th. And you know what? I am sick of it. I am sick of having some Hallmark Holiday get me down because I don't have the ingredients deemed necessary. Pfuiiiiii!
So I have created a new holiday.
I get my spiritual knickers in a twist because I don't have a beloved lover on Valentine's Day. My serenity flies out of the window, bumping her head on the sill.
It seems even the dogs get more romance than I do.
What craziness that it doesn't bother me on the day before, or the day after, but when I go to the shopping center and see husbands/boyfriends all on lunch break frantically looking at cards, trying to find something good, it touches me.
I love it when the older working guys come in to the shops, their hands all calloused. Big beefy guys, stranger to velvets and satins, are pawing through the card rack, pointing at the jewelry shelves, a look of somewhat dizzy uncertainty on their faces. But they are determined. They've been married for twenty plus years, and they are going to do this right. Period.
So they walk into shops that have lots of pink in them, or sweet smells, or aisles of satin-trimmed boxes of chocolate. They look at jewelry, suddenly unsure of whether their wives like silver or gold. White gold makes them crazy. They have no idea of the ring size, or the sweater size, or, goodness me -- the lingerie size. They are fish out of water, flopping on the mercantile shores for the sake of their beloved.
I watched how proud an older man looked when the clerk said, "Oh, this is a lovely choice! You have great taste." He looked proud and relieved at the same time. Then, to reassure himself he asked, "So this is better than a new vacuum?"
I love those moments, when a man who may not have yet met his own feminine side steps so far out of his comfort zone to look silly smelling colognes, or picking out the right lace-trimmed card, or imagining what those earrings might look like on the ears of his sweetheart.
That is what I miss.
But I still want to celebrate. I still want someone to say that I am special on that day, along with all the coupled people who hear that message. I don't want to be alone on the corner watching all the couples file by with ooey-gooey looks on their faces, knowing that when they get home, perfect lovemaking and gifts will await them. OK, maybe the lovemaking won't be perfect. But sometimes, when you are alone, you can imagine that everyone is getting fabulously bedded down in the best of all possible circumstances --- except you.
As I said, "Boo Hoo."
Activist wench that I am, I have come up with a Valentine's Day Alternate for those of us with no immediate Valentine around....I call it PALentine's Day.
Here is how to observe this holiday.
1. Look around at your friends, male and female, gay, bi- and straight. Gender and sexual orientation are irrelevant here.
2. See who is similarly un-partnered for Valentine's Day. Make sure it is someone you really like. A pal.
3. Ask them to be your PALentine. Say it out loud -- "Will you be my PALentine?"
4. Explain that a PALetine is just like a Valentine except there is no sex or romance. However, you two will be celebrating the loving friendship that you have -- with sincerity, gusto and cards (at minimum.) You are going to take this day to make sure the other knows how special they are to you. They will also let you know how special you are. Maybe there is a luncheon, or a dinner -- a movie, a gift, flowers, phone calls -- whatever. But there will be something. After all, you are each other's PALentines.
5. Let them know that there is no reason to be left out of Valentine's Day just because one is not with a partner on that date.
I have actually done this twice. Once was with a dear friend
