A Better Way to Think About Valentine’s Day
Valentine’s Day is pretty stupid.
But even so, I still kind of love Valentine’s Day. We don’t do a huge hearts and flowers and romantic Valentine’s dinner thing here. Are you kidding? We don’t do that ever. The Hub and I are two of those people who think the whole once-a-year-over-romanticized-retail-driven-frenzy of Valentine’s day is nonsense.
Around here it’s Valentine’s Day every day.
![20150214_024309[1]](http://www.themeaningofme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/20150214_0243091-e1423901164556.jpg)
Do you kind of want to barf right now? It’s OK if you do…I kind of want to barf a little myself right now. Especially since I just got done screaming down the stairs at my Husband to get out of the Geek Cave and for crying out loud go to bed if he’s going to snore like a freight train. Honestly. That’s what love looks like around here today.
But seriously, as stupid as that Valentine’s Day every day thing sounds, it’s true and I’ll tell you why.
Today, I want to share something with you. It’s something that was sent to me quite a few years ago by one of my favorite Valentines ever – my Mom.
At the time, I was in my late twenties and believed I was the only single person left on the planet. I carried the requisite hatred for Valentine’s Day and felt appropriately miserable every year. But this made me sit up and realize that I was thinking about it all wrong. This made me realize what I had actually known all along because it’s what my Mom and my Grandparents showed us all the time.
Love Is Other-Directed, Joy Is a Gift
by Mary Beth Bonacci
Oh, goody. Valentine’s Day is coming again.
Such a wonderful holiday It’s all about love, and everybody’s happy. Well, almost everybody. I guess the people who aren’t currently in a romantic “relationship” generally aren’t too thrilled. They’re sitting at home thinking about all of the romance and flowers and champagne that they’re missing out on and what’s the matter with them anyway and why aren’t there any decent women/men left in the world and why are they doomed to die old and alone and bitter and never again experiencing romance and flowers and champagne?
Then there are the people who are in romantic “relationships”, and they spend Valentine’s Day fuming over the fact that he forgot to send flowers again or that she’s moping all day or that the chocolates don’t make up for the fact that this guy is a geek or that he just met her and it just doesn’t seem so wonderful to be romantic with someone he barely knows or that she has been married to him for ages and he’s slurping his champagne again after she’s told him nine million times that slurping in public makes people think she married a hillbilly.
St. Valentine must be rolling in his grave.
Where did we go wrong? How does a holiday about love get so twisted? Easy. The same way love has been twisted. Valentine’s Day has become a holiday about feelings. We want a “feeling fix”-we want to experience that rush, that thrill of romantic love. We want our love lives to have a warm fuzzy focus and soft background music and the ecstatic joy of togetherness like we see on the soap operas.
Guess what? Real life doesn’t work like that. Sure there are moments, when two people are in love, where they both feel overwhelmed with love and they get lost in each other’s eyes and they could swear they hear music playing somewhere. But those moments aren’t scripted. They don’t appear on command and you can’t just flick a switch to make them happen. And they don’t happen like clockwork every February 14th.
C.S. Lewis writes extensively about this phenomenon, albeit not in a romantic situation, in his autobiography Surprised by Joy. He tells of his own experiences of being filled with total, utter joy at times when he least expected it. He then relates his attempts to recapture that joy by deliberately looking for it -by focusing his attention on the feeling itself. It never worked. He concludes that we must indeed be “surprised” by joy – that it happens when it happens, when we are going about the business of doing what we are supposed to do. But we must stay focused on what we are doing, and what we are called to do. As soon as we focus our attention on the feeling itself, it disappears.
Although Lewis wasn’t talking about romantic love per se, the same principle holds true. Love is, as I keep saying, wanting what is best of the other person. It is “other-directed” not “self directed.” If we love, our attention should be focused on the person whom we love, not on the feeling in ourselves which are generated by that love. I can’t tell you how tired I get of people digging around inside of themselves to try to figure out how they “feel” about the person to whom they are married. (Witness, once again, Nina and Victoria on The Young and the Restless. I want to reach right into the TV and strangle them both.) Who cares? The marital commitment isn’t a promise to feel a certain way. It’s a commitment to love, to look out for what is best for the other and the family.
My point? If you want to have a nice, rewarding, fulfilling Valentine’s Day, spend the day loving. If you have a spouse or fiance or whatever, be extra nice to that person That’s good. But do it for that reason – to be loving. Don’t do it because you want something back or you want to generate a certain feeling in yourself.
And if you don’t have a “significant other” (or whatever we call it these days), don’t sit around feeling sorry for yourself Instead of bemoaning the love you don’t have in your life, celebrate the love you do have. Reach out in love to your friends and your family. Tell them how much you appreciate them. Do something nice for them. Be a loving person. And then you too may be “surprised by joy.”
~~~~~~~~~~
This article appeared in the February 6, 1997 issue of “The Arlington Catholic Herald.”
Courtesy of the “Arlington Catholic Herald” diocesan newspaper of the Arlington (VA) diocese.
Copyright (c) 1997 EWTN Online Services.
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What a great read! And by the way, when do you sleep? Valentine’s Day is a bit of commercialized poop. As the single without a boyfriend, Valentine’s Day and New Year’s Eve were painful. But I love the perspective of giving, showing love extra-specially on this day, but everyday, too.
Glad you like it – I have kept it all these years because it’s just great. I can’t believe I never ran it on the blog. I remember being the only single in my groups of friends in my twenties. It was lousy and I think it’s because of how society programs us to think we’re ‘doing it wrong’ if we aren’t paired up. That’s why I love having this family party with Zilla – it gives her an early start on a better perspective.
She doesn’t sleep, Val.
That’s kinda true. I really don’t.
This is awesome. We’re in the ER, our non-plans all busted to shit, and we’re giggling and laughing and TOGETHER. Loving. It’s good, in spite of the burns.
I saw this and then looked at FB and saw your updates there. Glad he’s OK – he’s OK, right? It will make an awesome story to tell for years to come.
He’s okay. Thank goodness. A few small blisters (maybe) but nothing to worry about.
*I* on the other hand, came away with an accidental and hilarious diagnosis of excess carotene. Now I need to find a new vegetable that I love…
That DOES happen. Happened to a girl in my high school class.
Glad Husby is OK.
“Valentine’s Day has become a holiday about feelings. We want a “feeling fix”-we want to experience that rush, that thrill of romantic love.”
Thanks for the share. This was great. A bit of cultural conditioning/manipulation, this Valentine’s Day thing eh?
True. Many want the instant gratification of the “feeling” of the idealized version of love. Not realizing that there’s more to it than receiving gifts and cards and such.
As you pointed out, it’s not so much about the receiving, it’s about the giving. It is when we give that we truly receive. A simple concept that often gets lost in our day to day shuffle.
Happy Valentine’s Day Lisa! I didn’t barf once!!
It’s such a great essay, isn’t it? I’ve kept it around all these years because it’s so good. We get so programmed to think we want things (and need things) of this nature to be a certain way. OK, sure, they’re nice. I mean I’m not going to refuse the offer if the Hub hands me some awesome chocolates. But he does that lots of other days (as the size of my ass can attest) so I guess that’s the point.
Glad you didn’t barf. 😀
Oh I LOVE that article!!! It is just so true- joy can’t be FORCED. Love is universal and entirely about giving, and ironically receiving because of the giving. I do love this day, only because it’s about love. Period. We don’t do much here either… my man knows I see his love every day. That is enough. But he always figures out some kind of construction of words to give- albeit cards, internet poems to print or his own… because he knows WORDS are my love language.
It works. Oh, how I’m so grateful for our minimal maintenance love!
Mine, too! I tell the Hub i finally conceded to go out with him because he had a superior vocabulary (still does) and could talk about literature. The tough part is his language is not words but somehow he always manages to use them beautifully.
Your mother is one wise woman! I think Valentine’s Day has evolved into a day to make people feel bad instead of to celebrate love.
She really is. Truly.
I agree and that is why I like this essay so much. It turns that junk on its ear.
Such a cool read. My wife and I share the same Valentine’s-day-ought-to-be-everyday-and-who-are-these-people-to-try-and-dictate-my-romance-like-I’m-cattle doctrine. We’ve managed, so far, to keep ourselves from choosing that day to be deliberately unromantic as some sort of tacit protest against the whole institution but I’ll admit, there are times when I could see my thoughts sliding that way. Just kidding. Kind of.
But I love that passage you share. And man does CS Lewis have a way of always breaking things down clearly.
For what it’s worth, my wife and I had an excellent valentine’s day. Sitting lazily on the couch together watching movies for maybe 8 hours straight. It doesn’t sound very glamourous but it was one of the most romantic days we’ve shared. Which I’m now not sure how to feel about, as it means the you-must-be-romantic-on-february-14th gremlins have won. I guess CS Lewis is right, all the best things are a surprise.
Wow, Micah! Long time since I’ve seen you here (or on your place, for that matter). So glad you visited!
Sounds like a great day to me – Valentine’s day or any other. I can remember long days of movie marathons with the Hub. Those days are far fewer (and the marathons shorter) with a six year old in the mix. 😀
I love C.S. Lewis – both his fiction and non-fiction. He has a gifted way with words and yes, does manage to break it down very clearly and get his message across.
Coming over to check out your newest post later!