Cupid, Draw Back Your Bow

Valentine’s Day is the best holiday of the whole year. Any observance that has red, pink, roses and chocolate as its central themes makes other holidays look sad and less festive. I’ve never had a bad Valentine’s Day--even as a single person. Despite the advertising attempts to make singletons feel less adequate than people who participate in the economy of Cupid, I have nothing but good associations with the day of hearts and flowers. One year, as I watched my sweetie-less girlfriends weep and wail over the devastation of a lonely hearts and flowers day, I wondered why I was not similarly affected. I mean, let’s face it, “distraught” might as well be my middle name, so it’s weird that something so emotionally charged would leave me virtually unscathed. But I figured it out. It’s so simple: Valentine’s Day is really the only holiday not associated with family, at least not the one you were born into. Think about it--your mom never makes you feel guilty over missing Valentine’s dinner and you don’t have to draw names for giving gifts. Valentine’s Day is truly the one day of the year when any celebration you partake in is with someone you chose, wisely or not. In Sarah Weeks’ Be Mine, Be Mine, Sweet Valentine, everybody goes out of their way to please the one they chose as their other. I like Valentine’s Day. It’s not foisted on you, you walk straight into it of your own volition. I can appreciate that.

http://www.amazon.com/Be-Mine-Sweet-Valentine/dp/0694015148

http://www.sarahweeks.com/