Even during my most prolonged romantic dry spells, I always got a valentine. It would stick out among the bills and junk mail, a pink or red envelope of hope. The card was old-style -- never hip or ironic -- just a cartoon bear hugging a heart, or a kitten chasing a ball of yarn, followed by your basic gushy wish for a bear-y yummy or purr-fect sweetheart of a day.
And then, the signature:
"Love, Mom."
Now, this could have been painful. This could have been pathetic with a capital P that rhymed with wretch-like-me. Friends would be making romantic dinner plans, and speaking of roses, and singing the jewelry store jingle, while admiring their new precious gems. (Not really on that last one. But those ads do quite a number on the sanity of the single girl, implanting themselves in our fantasy world, haunting us even as we move into marriage and beyond.) (Really.)
And there against this backdrop would be single me, feeling miserable that I did not have what I thought others had, wondering what was wrong with me that I did not have what I would melodramatically conclude the entire human race was predicated upon -- a love relationship. Wretch-like-me, wretch-like-me, wretch-like-me, and then I'd get the card from my mom.
What surprised me each time was how happy the card made me. (She still sends them.) It never served as a reminder of some sorry state. It was, simply, a sweet gesture. I would stick the card on my refrigerator, where it would hang, as these things do, crookedly, until one day the wind blows and it goes flying and you think, "It's time," and pick it up and pitch it.
And so, it is armed with this piece of unromantic history that I approach a new Valentine's Day. I'm thinking of my girlfriends who happen to be in dry spells. I'm thinking of one who just broke up with her boyfriend, another who is recently separated and a few who seem to have given up altogether on love. What is the role of the girlfriend in these Valentine's Day situations? Do you send a card, as my mother did, and make sure they get something? Or do you take the silent approach, send nothing, say nothing, just pretend the big day of hearts and flowers isn't happening?
After going back and forth on this one, I decide, finally, to call one of these friends and ask. She says okay, she'll talk, but I'm not allowed to reveal her identity. She hasn't told her own family yet about her separation -- that's how raw this whole thing is. She says, don't worry about Valentine's Day; she's glad to have a break from the overwrought gig. "I don't care anymore," she says, explaining her theory that many women, single and attached, experience a kind of Valentine's Day evolution. "You go through so many years being disappointed. Eventually you say: 'I don't care anymore,' even though you really do. Then one day, you really don't. That's where I am."
Well, that doesn't sound good. She tells me she's worried about our friends who are in relationships with men who are anti-Valentine's Day. "You know, the guys who whine about how it's just a greeting card company dictating how we should behave, blah, blah, blah?"
"Ugh," I say.
"Those are our sisters in need," she says. "We should send them cards." We should also, she says, send cards to old ladies; for that matter, to anyone with a deceased partner. "Old men, too," she says. "And nuns. Think about the people who are really feeling left out. We should send cards to spouses of soldiers deployed overseas."
The list goes on and on. I make the point that this is turning into a big undertaking. And what if these people don't want cards? I mean, I love getting that card from my mom, but I could imagine a lot of people who would not have felt helped by that act of kindness.
That's when she comes up with her idea for a Valentine's Day revolution, which like so many uprisings is really just a return to the past. "We should go back to the way it was in second grade," she says. "You decorate a shoe box, your classmates stuff it with little cards and treats." She says we could do this with mailboxes. The people who want to participate in Valentine's Day can decorate their mailboxes, then walk around the neighborhood and put cards in all the other mailboxes so noted. "Everybody who wants something gets something, nobody gets hurt."
This raises an obvious question. Would she be among the mailbox decorators? She says, "Of course!"
"But I thought you said you didn't care anymore about Valentine's Day."
"Well, I guess I do," she says.
"So I should just go ahead and send you a card?"
"Yeah."
Jeanne Marie Laskas's e-mail address is post@jmlaskas.com.
