Valentine’s Day

My first Valentine’s with M, we were both sick with colds. Soup and grilled cheese was our special Valentine’s dinner. Although it might have been that grilled cheese that made her fall more in love with me as it was 3 cheese and seasonings mixed the butter as I didn’t have pesto on hand. I love using pesto on grilled cheese. I digress though. Valentine’s was a box of tissue between us on the couch as we ate soup and grilled cheese, and watched a movie.  Our second Valentine’s, we did all the Valentine type things, chocolates, dinner out, and lots of just romantic type stuff.

Honestly though I can’t remember many Valentine celebrations, as Valentine’s Day wasn’t a huge deal to us. Our anniversary is February 1. (Yes,I went from past tense to present and yes, I noticed.)

Michaela would sing “Happy Anniversary, Baby…got you on my mind” on the first of the month - every month for almost the whole time she was alive. She made our relationship feel special all the time. We showed love for each other all the time sometimes to friends nauseam. So Valentine’s Day wasn’t a big deal when I was with someone who made it a point to celebrate our love and our relationship everyday.

I had someone ask me recently how M and I celebrated Valentine’s Day and I shared that we didn’t. They seemed to feel sad for me and then I explained how M made it a thing to celebrate our love in so many ways everyday even in the middle of the mundane daily life tasks.

I could have told her stories upon stories. Such as I would open a cupboard and find a note telling me she loved me, or a gift certificate to a coffee shop and note to go have a coffee date with one of my friends tucked into my wallet, or in the middle of washing dishes she would come in and hug me from behind and whisper something super sexy and just full of love and mischief all at the same time. She would grab me to dance on a Sunday morning as we made brunch. She would pick up a pool noodle, toss me one, make light saber noises as we stood back to back, pretending that we were fighting off stormtroopers in garden section of Walmart. She would say “let’s go” in the middle of the day and we would end up at our favorite spot along the river. We would sit and hold hands as we watched the water flow just allowing us to be in the moment together. We would stand in front of the coffee maker in our kitchen and make plans for the evening even if it was just to veg in front of the tv with a comfort rewatch of a favorite or starting something new. We would decide spur of the moment to drive out to our spot and look at the stars in the middle of the night.

We had plenty of days of working and just falling into bed exhausted at the end of the day wondering if either of us had time for more than a quick hug as we passed each other on the way to kitchen. We had days where she would go to bed early and I would be up all night so we felt like ships passing by and not really connecting. We, of course, had disagreements and times where one or the other or both us acted in ways we weren’t proud of maybe saying things that couldn’t be taken back.

In all the bad times, we always came together to work through it. We had more good times than bad and some of those good times make me go find photos to make sure that it wasn’t just a dream. Our mushy and romantic ways always outweighed the negative moments.

I mean I was with someone who tossed me a pool noodle, made a light saber noises, and off we went together fighting the imaginary storm troopers in the middle of Walmart garden section. We also had a fencing fight in City Market once with pool noddles where M was using lines from the Princess Bride for that pool noodle battle. We were silly, weird, and quirky in a way that worked so so well for us.

Our weirdness just brought us together. I am thankful I had someone who loved me in all my weirdness and knew I would love her in all of hers too. Thankful for her and all our adventures together that really showed how authentic we were with our love for each other by being able to just be together and not care if others didn’t get us. We fit together.  We knew it and celebrated it and that is all that mattered. Valentine’s Day was everyday in all the big and little ways she and I showed up for each other in serious moments and in our weird quirky adventures.